By Degrees
by Zagzagel
Summary: Some things change when in hell. Sam wasn't sure how much was left to actually change and what the price would be, both in hell and out. [An AU of the Cage and beyond.]
1. Chapter 1

His arm was reaching out, snagging on the rough edges of coat as he lost control. His body hung there for a moment as he tried to get his hand to push back; to do anything but the motion Lucifer struggled to maintain.

The face in front of him made a small 'oh', eyebrows drawn together but there was no sign of shock as the balance wore thin and they were falling into that abyss. Lucifer was already rising with a wave of fury crackling through his nerves but all he could do was look at Michael, the heartbroken gaze that rested in those eyes.

"Oh Sammy, you and I will have such times together. Here in the dark where no one hears." Lucifer sang with an edge to his voice whispering of danger and madness. A ripping sensation and he fell to darkness, suddenly feeling empty as the air that wasn't really there rushed around them.

 **XX**

* * *

Perfect Pain. That's what Lucifer had called it and maybe it was. There was little time to reflect on what that meant as everything that was him screamed in some strange unison like a choir trying to achieve that pitch that fractured glass.

Sometimes he wondered if Lucifer was trying to tune his screaming to shatter their prison.

A moment of respite washed over him and he heard the devil off singing to some far corner of this hole, nothing to speak of except the lunatic that appeared like his old vessel. Sam figured in these few precious moments that he was himself that it was his brain not being able to see true forms down here.

"Oh brother mine, wouldn't you like a piece of maggot that got us both trapped down here?"

Sam never heard any answer and Lucifer sneered, a twist that was malevolent and full of instability.

 _You don't deserve a brother_ , he thought wildly trying to hold onto the fragmented memories he still had of Dean.

Lucifer's grin just spread more to the point that Sam thought it would crack his face till the angel seeped out to begin again.

 **XX**

* * *

"Why?"

Green eyes were staring but he knew who this was. Dimly he remembered he had little brother but so much felt gone, washing away as time slide by at the dizzying pace of ice.

"Why what, brother?"

"What good does it do to shatter his soul?"

"I'm trying to create the perfect human," Lucifer snapped, a whine under his voice and Sam had a flash of memory of him using that tone before. It took a moment before he was able to come up with Dean. "One that obeys, has no connections. Just is as it was meant to be."

"Then it is no longer human."

There was a growl from Lucifer, the one name that always pounded in Sam, the one thing he never forgot as the other man's head tilted slightly looking at him. Like some rather interesting but rather useless piece of art. A laugh bubbled up at that thought unbidden and Lucifer's face melted into something almost fond, something that said 'I can almost tolerate you now'.

 _I'm okay_ , Sam thought at those green eyes watching. _I will forget and then I will be pleasing._

"You see, brother, it will be something to behold when I am done."

The pain rippled through as it devoured more, and he found he no longer cared.

 **XX**

* * *

There were still images, a man with brown hair and eyes the color of fresh fields with freckles everywhere who laughed but rarely smiled. They haunted Sam now, he didn't know who it was but it felt like something he should remember. Something sacred that was being taken but it was too late now. That man was almost gone, the one that held him and always came. It shouldn't be forgotten but it was all the same.

Lucifer promised it would all be for the best, that he would be pure.

The devil smiled down at him, something warm this time in the look "Soon, you're almost there."

It seemed like such a kind promise, that the pain would stop and he would be what he needed to be. Lucifer looked ready to finish when a sword of blazing fire burst open his chest and Sam felt his eyes widen as something that wasn't blood poured from the wound. The blade twisted and there was a choking sound, a mix of disbelief and betrayal but Sam felt calm. There was nothing to be done since he could do nothing so he simply watched as Lucifer clawed helplessly at his chest sinking on the blade as it cut upwards.

"Relax, brother mine," said a voice Sam did not recognize. "We do not die here. I wish to take your experiment."

"Michael," came a gasp as the blade cut upwards and was close to freedom through Lucifer's shoulder. "What are you doing?"

There was no answer, simply the blade sliding through those last precious inches and Lucifer collapsed beyond his view. Sam felt he should be more upset over this, the angel had been helping him but he couldn't find the effort to raise such concern. Instead he watched as a man stepped forward that wasn't familiar and touched his face gently.

"Hello Sam."

 _Hello._

"He took your voice." There was no hint of question and Sam nodded.

 _An opinion makes me imperfect. He would take all my thoughts too if he could to make me perfect._

"Do you know who I am?"

 _Michael?_ It seemed a fair enough guess from what Lucifer had cried out and that head tilted watching him.

"Do you know what that means?"

 _No._ Nothing had meaning outside what was given meaning to him by Lucifer.

"Rest."

Fingers slipped along his brow soft and welcoming and for the first time since he came here he drifted off without anguish.

 **XX**

* * *

Everything felt like it was on fire, like some thoughtful person had come along and lit up all his nerves at once then skipped along while he convulsed. Somehow he got his eyes open and it was dark. The feeling of heat pressed up against him, something surrounding him before he realized he had his face buried against something. Carefully, since if he moved too fast there were explosions through his mind, he turned his head and took in the face staring down at him. Adam.

 _No_ , his mind corrected, _not Adam_.

"Your brother is in heaven. Stay still."

Awareness crept back up on him. They were in the Cage, Lucifer had dragged Michael down with them and then, then…his mind refused to work over that last part. How he got to be with Michael was a mystery but perhaps one he could live with.

A whisper soothed over his skin calling and he felt Michael's hold on him tighten. Even though it was just arms wrapped around him it felt like he was completely surrounded. Some fractured part of him wondered if it was wings and saw a small upturn of the angel's mouth that was half smile half grimace.

"Rest again Sam. It will get better."

He fell back into the arms of blissful unawareness.

 **XX**

* * *

The feeling of being engulfed was still there when he stirred again but the fire was slowly being extinguished in him. There was enough of him this time to know he was still being held by Michael somewhere in the Cage buried and forgotten in hell. Idly he wondered if he was still flesh and bone or if this was just his soul that was so raw and undone.

"Why?"

That head of mussed hair with sharp eyes turned to him, searching for something and Sam wondered if it was sanity or the root of his question. A laugh burbled somewhere in him as he thought his sanity had checked out before they hit.

"I do not wish to truly become a monster."

There was something under that, some unstated fact that Sam knew he was missing that slipped and slide through him in mocking strides. He was so tired though he didn't care and felt the hold on him strengthen and then a small sensation of movement. The whispers dimmed and he realized it was Lucifer calling for them, playing with his prey.

 _I'll slow you down_ , his mind supplied staring up at those almost blank eyes. _Then he'll find us, he'll find you. What did you do, Michael?_

"Rest, we will be alright."

The darkness was welcoming and he slide back into it.

 **XX**

* * *

Something like rage flared into him when he realized who was holding him and he clawed against that chest, arms like tight twine wrapping him in place.

"Be still."

"This is your fault," he growled out. "You wanted your little fight so Daddy would come home."

Those eyes were back on him and there was something other than cold angelic blankness lurking as they took him in. That face leaned down where he was pinned and that rage curdled more, swelling at the travesty of this. A savior far too late.

"You want to know what I did up until the time your brother descended into hell?"

"You mean outside of screw with our lives?"

"I sent cupids," came the voice, low and commanding and Sam stilled. "Outside of the unfortunate incident with Anael, all I had to do was make sure the love between the lines was recognized. Your family destroyed itself. Especially you Samuel Winchester. Everything you did, you did eventually to yourself despite your brother standing there."

"No, I –"

"I'd give you back if he wasn't insane," the angel continued, voice brittle. "If he wasn't trying to turn you into an even greater abomination then his pets since both of you walked away of your own free will. Wouldn't Dean be impressed that he was right about choice after all?"

Something seared and snapped inside him, a hinge that had been set up to keep that door closed, to keep out that truth. He shook his head, squirming wanting to get away but he was held fast, and for the first time he wondered what was really holding him compared to what he could see.

"You are weak," Michael snarled. "Just like Lucifer. That's all you are and what you always will be, Sam Winchester. A pawn in a vast game who thinks he is a king."

Everything went out of him, those eyes staring deep and seeing everything laid open and bleeding and he let out a cry that was muffled by Michael rolling him into his chest.

"Do not make so much noise stupid child. I despise having to move."

All he could do was nod, trying to sob silently as he finally remembered Dean, the look in his eyes when he had betrayed his own brother.

 **XX**

* * *

"Sam."

A voice pulled him out of the murky depths his consciousness, or whatever he was residing in, and he looked up still held in those vice hands. Michael's face was tight, his lips pressed thin and he thought wildly that Lucifer had found him but they seemed to be alone. A whisper and the sensation of ruffling, as though he was being cut off from everything around them.

"What's wrong?"

"We are in hell, child," came the response as though he was two and needed to be reminded once again where he kept waking up. It wasn't like he didn't want to wake up in some hooker hotel with his brother snoring and flopped out on the next bed. He just knew that was a very unlikely possibility right now. Then a soft sound almost like a sigh but wasn't. "You are aware of what hell does to souls by existing alone. Just being here, this deep in this place as something like me, is – unpleasant."

Seeing the pinched expression on a face that rarely held emotion, Sam would venture it was miles past unpleasant. The sharp look he got also informed him to keep his opinions safely to himself.

"It will pass."

"What – what did you do to save me?"

"It is of no importance."

"But –"

"Silence, boy," the angel hissed and Sam snapped his mouth shut. "Your brother is reckless with his own well-being. I would be surprised if he does not find a way to free you. Be grateful for this gift and pray he forgives you for what you've done."

They were silent until Sam slipped back into dreams he could not remember, his thoughts cluttered with Dean.

 **XX**

* * *

It felt like years had rushed past them even if that seemed an impossibility. Always in the same position and now almost never speaking, the silence some vast expansion and Sam bit back the want to be closer. They felt rather close now, far more so then their positioning suggested, and he wondered from time to time if Michael had him tucked up in his true form. The whispers rippled across the blackness of this all, Lucifer lazily playing with his food before deciding when to eat. Just that strange sensation of Michael keeping him at bay, held up and away despite what his mind was telling him was reality.

Somedays he wondered if Dean was alive, if he had found any happiness with Lisa and a part of him twisted and wronged hoped that he hadn't. That deep part that wanted his brother to suffer and he wished it was out of him, gone and washed away. It became so thundering at times that he almost begged Michael to let him go back to Lucifer so he wouldn't remember, just let the haze drop down till he had no will or life.

Other days he couldn't think of Dean at all without feeling like he would be stripped to nothing in grief.

Then there was the angel, always holding him, quiet and listening for the threat of his once baby brother floating in the murk out there. It was on a day when the angel's face was tight again as if in agony that Sam did something so fundamentally stupid that it could only be described as classically Winchester.

He reached out a hand and touched that face, those eyes snapping open and staring at him.

"What, Sam?"

"I – I – it's just that you," he stammered and couldn't free his hand, wanting to keep touching because it wasn't skin his fingers were against, bright and burning. "What did you do?" he whispered and those eyes finally looked away, a feeling of shame blinding and cold flashed in him.

"It doesn't matter."

"How could not matter?" Sam demanded with a dizzying mix of frustration, confusion and dread nestling into his stomach. "Did you do something to yourself to save me?"

"Sleep Sam."

And he tried not to scream in helplessness as he fell back into dreams.

 **XX**

* * *

"He doesn't know," Michael murmured with something sounding like bitter humor lacing the words. "The fool still hasn't figured it out."

Sam watched the archangel, who seemed almost unaware that he was awake against him as those lips moved and flexed into something like a twisted smile. They hadn't spoken since the last time Sam had done something foolish and he felt perhaps he had saved up enough energy for stupid Sam trick #132.

"What does he want?" he tried instead of asking the obvious like how he was still whole. Michael looked down at him, eyes drowning in their own despair.

"He wants me. That he will leave you alone if I come and give him the same 'comfort'" and the last word was almost spit out, chewed up. "What he does to me here you will feel, but he has yet to understand that."

"And that is?" Sam ventured hoping he might get an answer because they had nothing but time down here as it glided by them like a taunt. The archangel made a small noise, something like amusement but undercut with a feeling Sam was getting.

"You will hate me."

"And that concerns you?"

He knew his eyes were wide staring up at that face now since he kind of felt that this creature had no use for him outside of duty.

"Strangely, it does now."

Sam decided to dare fate and reached back up again to touch that face that was not flesh and the archangel closed his eyes, something like a tremble that reached Sam across what seemed like a void between them.

"Very well," Michael said, his voice quiet and flat. "I had to fuse your soul back together with my grace, enough that we are eternal together. It was the only option to keep you from scattering and why you felt so much pain at first."

If Sam hadn't already been in hell he would have sworn that this was the most unbelievable, unacceptable thing to have happened to him. Apparently consent was only a vessel issue and anger flared before he felt something else, an emotion that wasn't his before it evaporated like water in the midday sun.

"Why would you do this?" The words barely made it past his mouth.

There wasn't an answer and Sam felt himself slide back to sleep as the years yawned wide and hungry.

 **XX**

* * *

"Michael?" The angel made a humming noise, his eyes staying focused and almost glazed to a point over and above Sam. "What happens if Dean –"

"When."

"When Dean," Sam corrected, trying not to roll his eyes, "gets me out?"

"To you? You should be alright," Michael said, his voice stiff but sure.

"And you?"

"The mercy of insanity most likely."

"Michael –"

"Hush child."

Sam hushed.

 **XX**

* * *

It felt as though the angel had him sectioned off in some part of himself, separate but still receiving the benefits of protection from an archangel. Sam buried his face in the coat that wasn't really there, wrapping his hands in that non-existent fabric that hummed between his fingers causing Michael to make a soft sound.

"You should let me go. I belong here for the blood on my hands."

"Not for eternity, Sam."

"And you do?"

Another small sound and Sam didn't have to look to know Michael was looking down at him again. The arms on him tightened and Sam felt the gulf between them grow wider, as if the angel was trying to hide from the soul he was wrapped around.

"Will you tell me?"

"It is something that only my Father and I know." Michael's voice had a soft edge, grieved and almost broken. Sam buried his fingers further in that non-existent cloth. "But as this is my eternal fate perhaps it is time to confess for the first and last time."

There was something lurking under those smooth tones, hinting of pride, that this was a human asking for such a secret and unworthy. Sam wanted to point out that he already knew he was unworthy and most likely would never be forgiven. But the archangel was suffering, whatever it was had helped shape everything that came after it to this point, like the entirety of the world narrowed down to one past choice that doomed everything.

"All I can do is listen but if you want to tell me I will."

"I have done many questionable things in my long life but your brother and I share one fault: we love someone more than everything." Michael paused and Sam wanted to tell him he did not need flashing neon signs to know that someone was the very one stalking them through this place. Instead he held on tighter. "It is why the Cage exists, Sam, built with my own hands. I begged my Father to spare my brother's life at the cost of everything."

With that the gulf between them was gone and Sam felt encased fully in the archangel, the suffocating grief churning through everything that made him himself. All he could do was grip tighter as the angel began to speak again.

 **XX**

* * *

It had been a long time since Michael had finally fallen silent, his grace moving over Sam like a river, though in it now was a sense of peace. Sam still lay in his arms, face buried in what was all Michael even if his puny human eyes couldn't see it and he felt cleaner than he had in along time.

"Sam," the angel said after what seemed like a decade and it probably had been, "thank you."

"If I make it out of here will I remember you? Any of this?"

"No, and it would do you better to keep it that way." There was a quiet horror in those words that made him look up at that face that wasn't really his brother.

"Someone should remember you."

"I need no such thing."

Sam fell silent as they felt Lucifer growing closer, finally beginning to tire of his game with Michael. He knew it wouldn't be long before the devil was beside them and he wanted Michael to break their bond, to cast him back at Lucifer's feet.

"Why would you want such a thing?"

"So you aren't hurt by something you still love."

A small quiet noise that rang through Sam like a sob and Michael shook his head ever so slightly. Hands curled up tighter, a sensation of heat and flame but there was no pain, and he relished it in this cold place that held nothing but misery.

"I thought I had nothing left for him to take from me but I understand now that you are the last thing."

All he could do was try not to voice _'I'm not worth it'_ even as the angel heard and he fell further into that warmth.

 **XX**

* * *

"Sam, he's coming."

There was only resignation there as Sam felt ultimate terror break free and fully bloom up inside him. He knew there was nothing to be done, that Lucifer would always come to this and before it had just been a game to get Michael to suffer a little bit more. A slight reprieve to make what followed twist further in.

"Brother mine," and the devil's cold presence was close to them. Sam closed his eyes, he didn't want to see. A sharp breath, or what his mind translated into a breath, was right beside them. "Brother, you have sullied yourself, made yourself into an abomination with this," Lucifer hissed, anger prevalent and cutting.

"I grow weary of your games, Lucifer."

"It seems like you are playing one all your own." A shudder ran through Michael. "You dislike my touch now? After all this time when only you and Father could hear me scream and you can't even give me one mercy?"

Sam would have thought the words sincere if he hadn't been able to feel the contempt forcing them out in quick pulses.

"You spent my mercy long ago, Morning Star."

"So be it. This should be easier with you trying to protect that little maggot and then I can break this hideous thing you've done to yourself. Really Michael, have you truly lost your mind?"

"Go to sleep, Sam," the archangel was saying to him, the darkness threatening to take over Sam's consciousness all over again. He wanted to scream at Lucifer, anything for this not to be happening as the feeling of movement and sleep rushed over him at once and all he got out was a pitiful please

 **XX**

* * *

It was so bright that he felt a headache forming and that was seconds before he realized his eyes were closed. Rolling over he moaned into what felt like grass against his face, fingers digging into earth that was hard and solid.

Then he snapped his eyes open because he knew where he should be and this wasn't it. The world swam and danced in front of him before he mashed his eyelids back down, a surge of nausea drifting uneasily in the back of his throat as it decided whether or not to make a presentation. As he deliberated whether or not he wanted to attempt the whole waking up thing again, there was a sound near him and his breath stilled.

"Sam?"

Even if he didn't want to see what sort of fresh hell he was in now he opened his eyes slowly this time and took in the sight of a man who was kneeling beside him. Dark hair and skin the color of creamed coffee, and God he was suddenly hungry as he saw those blue eyes staring at him in wonder.

"Michael. Are we, are we on –"

"Yes, beloved," came the soft response as the angel tilted his head back to stare at the sky, the collar of dress shirt open and moving slightly in the breeze that played through the untended grass here. Sam suddenly realized it was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever seen and those eyes fell back on him as that creature tilted his head back down.

With a bit of effort Sam managed to haul himself off the earth so that at least it didn't look like he had done some uncoordinated face plant in a haunted cemetery and looked around. As the shock of having a body, of breathing air, and feeling the sun slowly wore off a little his thoughts turned to Dean. If he was still alive.

"It's been about two years here," the angel told him gently, still looking a mixture caught between shock and joy. "The farther down in hell you go the faster time moves," came the answer to Sam's question that had gotten caught in his teeth, as he had been fairly certain they had a more than two years racked up.

"Is Dean alive?"

"I'm sorry, Sam, I am confined to this body and am," there was a small hand gesture there, a frustrated sound, "limited."

"You're still an angel right?"

Since for some reason Michael being forced to be something he wasn't terrified him in that moment.

"Archangel," came the correction with that underlying sense of pride and Sam smiled. "Yes, but I am sealed in this flesh and my abilities are few. I am sorry, but we will have to search for him with your methods not mine."

Nodding, Sam allowed himself to be helped up when he caught the sight of black lines like thin vines snaking up the back of Michael's hand. With something like dreading fascination, he saw his own hands had the same design. He brushed first his then the angel's with his finger tips, the second feeling like a hum.

"Our bond," Michael said beside him. "Something so sacred cannot be hidden."

"Does it go all the way up?" he asked, pulling at his shirt cuff trying to see the lines wrapping around his wrist on their way up his arm. "I mean, it's all over me?"

"To an extent," the angel replied seeming pleased with Sam's fascination before reaching out and carefully touching the lines on his hands. "I never intended for us to be this, Sam, I hope you understand. I didn't give you a choice and I apologize if it is something you resent me for."

"No, no it's okay just a bit," he swallowed and shook his head trying to wrap his brain around the fact they were out of hell at all let alone here together. "I just, I'm trying to process this."

"Come, I believe we should start walking before it is night."

Sam looked up at the deepening sky, the pinks trailing across the dark blue as the sun was slipping away for yet another day. He looked over at Michael who was patiently waiting for him and whispered "You can't fly anymore can you?"

"No," but the angel pressed on before he could utter the words, "don't be sorry. We are free Sam. We will find your brother."

Nodding again, since that's all he could muster right now in the face of all this, numb from being so overwhelmed, he let Michael gently lead him by the hand out through the rusting gate and towards people.


	2. Chapter 2

He was enthralled with the straw caught in the angel's hair.

It was the edge, he was distantly aware of that. A cliff he was walking towards and the chilling of the night nesting in the open spaces around him couldn't even bring him back. Hell, Lucifer, resurrection, a hitched ride in a truck bed slipped together as a babbling mass. This congealed mess identifying itself as his mind slowly cascading to liquid lunacy and maybe he'd wake up soon. Dean would be snoring and dad mad that they overslept again and –

"Sam."

Michael's voice was some sort of grounding force. Or rather maybe it was the ground with its firmness. Hands that were warm, too warm, heat seeping through thin cotton and into his cold flesh that was still off in its new familiarity. Fingers arching and framing his shoulders and that edge finally backed off a little bit.

Slowly, the world of blaring traffic, streaky lights and the thick scent of life came trickling in. The asphalt of the parking lot was unyielding against the soles of his boots, rain soaked ground reflecting neon lights of the storefront back up in scattered puddles. One of those places that sold the same things as its thousand replica stores across the country.

"Sorry," he muttered running a hand down his face. He tried to make himself not pluck out that bit of straw that clung like a radiant beam against Michael's dark hair. "I don't know what that was."

"You are safe, simply readjusting," Michael said, all stiff, the eternal solider still. "The driver said they had a phone here."

A glance at the store front revealed an old battered blue booth, a resilient relic not yet stripped away. "Yeah, but we need money."

On reflex, before his brain had caught up with his situation he checked his pockets. While he came up empty the archangel was rewarded with what seemed like a decent pile of cash. Sam wondered if that was because God viewed the archangel as the more responsible one, some bit of jealously since he was the original human here.

Then he promptly remembered his little episode from two minutes ago and thought that a sound decision.

"I assume this will do."

They bought a card without problems. Of course, he still felt like a half stunned fish trying to recite the Odyssey when attempting to talk. Michael though kept to the explanation that they had given to their truck driving rescuer. Car accident, went off the road and they, while alright, needed to contact family and help. That Sam was still all rattled and a bit battered but good.

"Poor thing," the clerk had said with a pity fueled look. "You should really have him checked for a concussion. Those sneak up on you."

Her head had bobbed at this like she had personal experience with concussion and their terribly sneaky ways.

"I will. He just needs to hear his brother's voice first."

They stood outside now, card clutched in his hand as instructions were followed with long strings of numbers punched in. He slunk further into the glass booth hoping to gain a little more shelter from the wind that was steadily rising.

Of course Dean didn't pick up and he'd have to use his words.

"Don't freak. It's me. Really me. I'm not quite sure where I am but I'm okay. I – I'll try other phones." The receiver clicked into place under his hand and he knew immediately that Dean would be instantly triggered into freak out mode. "Going to try Bobby's old number and then other phones."

"Alright, Sam," that voice still soft, eyes sharp on him. "Are you hungry?"

He was a mile past ravenous. An angry twist of his stomach at that moment to remind him that it existed and currently was attempting to feed on itself. "Yeah."

"I will go get you something to eat and see if there is a place close by to take you. Promise me, Sam, that you will stay right here." Michael had a grip on his arm, quick and tight.

"I promise," he said, terrified by the thought of being separated. Of not touching. "Just calling till someone picks up or I run out of numbers."

"Good."

He cycled through numbers that felt like a thousand lifetimes ago. All of Dean's went to voicemail after the first ring. But Bobby's – his were different. There was nothing but a service message politely telling him who he was calling didn't exist there anymore. Images of Lucifer inside him, that sickening crack of the old hunter's neck in that field before he fell to hell and that edge was looming again.

Then there was Michael, plastic bag swinging loosely from his fingers. A hand on his own, thumb brushing the skin as if keeping some hidden beat that was comforting and commanding all at once. He managed to pull himself back together, at least stable enough to impede the internal collapse that had been threatening.

"Dean's phones are active. Feels like he might have ditched them. Bobby's are –" he can't finish because he should have known the reality. Yet the words won't come because he's terrified that he'd be making something real that up to this moment wasn't.

"They said there is a place down the way. Apparently unsavory but you will be inside. Come with me, Sam."

He nodded, letting the angel lead him on.

 **XX**

* * *

Some distant memory told him he had stayed in places worse than this with Dean. As soon as his mind untangled itself thing would be clear, he was sure of it.

So he sat on the edge of a rundown bed whose comforter had long ago lost the concept of clean, melding it with the rest of the grimy room, as he ate what seemed like the best sandwich in all his life. Wilty lettuce, tomatoes, chicken, bacon and some sort of heavy dressing yet it bloomed luxurious across his tongue. Michael's hand rested on his knee, that thumb was still making its measured movements as the angel was otherwise still beside him.

"We will find him, Sam."

"But –"

"It does not matter, where ever he may be," the angel cut him off so the words he feared the most wouldn't form. "It will be better in the morning."

"Are you disappointed?" He can't stop the question from spilling out messy and that movement on him stopped for a second.

"No, Sam."

It's coming now, some sort of rush from fried nerves and relief and just pure shock and he's trying to push it back. He can't look up, can't get his head over enough and the empty wrapper falls from his lap to the floor. Somehow, it's so loud and rude that he can't image it not waking up an entire block.

"It's alright," and Michael was closer, humming a familiar song as something deep in him strained to listen to only that.

"Having problems at times with realness," he mumbled into the angel's shoulder.

"I know. Shock. I promise it is merely temporary."

"Did Dean –" he halted, hating himself more for what he had been, a quiet noise from the angel.

"Hell is hell, Sam, but the experiences are different. And when your brother was brought back, adjustments for him were made."

That alone brought up a fountain of questions in his addled brain before Michael mercifully suggested a shower.

It didn't occur to him to complain as the angel helped him from his clothing. A part of him felt small and stupid. Sam, the incapable man child who must always be saved. The angel whispering things to him as the water hit his body hot and real and really here. Of how they have each other's name upon them, that all these lines etched into them somehow told a story.

Sam stared at the vines of black that crept up Michael's arms, trying to see the words that he assumed his stupid human eyes couldn't see. The way they swept and flowed, some ending in curls other's carrying on until they met under the angel's collarbone in a complicated pattern that was both perfect and chaos. A laced dance of so much that he had no idea where even the first strand truly started to thread the rest.

"Because of how we are, what we are," the angel said, voice low but still there against the sound of water. "Rare and never seen like this."

When Michael turned Sam became aware that the map extended to his back, the same thin veins of black that centered around a large collection of symbols along his spine. Sam couldn't help it, couldn't stop himself as he reached out to touch.

"Your name. You bare mine." Before he can even get out some sort of half assed apology for what he had done Michael was close again. "I am not sorry for this."

Towels that had never shared a room with softness scratched at his skin and he craved the feel. Anything to keep him cemented in the now. There wasn't a way to get himself from not touching Michael, the furnace that he was. The point of an elbow, the curve of the throat. Knowing that his touch was truth in these minutes, that it was real and it was not hell.

Hell, where last he had known Michael was about to be attacked by Lucifer.

"Are you alright?" he asked, pissed at himself for not asking before as the archangel guided him to the bed, sheets over washed to roughness.

"Functional." The lights were off and he wanted to protest before feeling Michael curl up beside him. "We are safe here, the wards will hold. You will stop losing time soon. Rest."

His eyes finally did, refusing to open again. That thumb was still brushing against his skin, keeping that invisible beat as he drifted off to sleep.

 **XX**

* * *

Things were truly clearer in the morning. Infinitely clearer to the point they were almost pristine.

The first being that he was waking up not knowing completely where he was. Or even with the best recollection of yesterday's events.

The second being that he was naked in bed with an angel. Strike that, an archangel.

"Sam," and the arm around him tightened. "I will let you up in a moment. I want the panic to pass first."

Oh yeah, like that didn't make the panic seep in a lot more.

So he made himself breath slow, drawn out breaths, trying to get himself to at least appear as though he wasn't going to run screaming, ass-naked, out the door. That he wasn't melting into a yipping pile of Sam goo at the reality of this. Since it really was reality, all neatly pressed up against him and almost suffocating in its lack of illusions.

That arm released him and he managed to free himself from the sheets without falling flat on his face. It was only when he was standing that he remembered he was sans clothes and any sort of remaining dignity.

"Sorry. It's not that I don't – I mean I just – " he trailed off, certain his face had not been redder in his whole life and that was saying a lot given who his brother was.

Michael merely blinked up at him but he was fairly certain there were some fine traces of amusement in those eyes. "Your clothes are in the chair."

He grabbed them on his way to the bathroom, feeling as though there wasn't enough readily available air in the galaxy to get in. That there was nothing that would help him process the complete insanity as he turned on the faucet to splash cold water on his face. Get a grip, he needed to get a grip on things.

Then he spied his hair and groaned, slicking all the wild feathery ends down with wet fingertips. Even if he was going mental he didn't have to look it.

Tending to that little issue though made him really take in the marks all over him. Celestial tattoos of the highest order, he thought as he looked at them winding their way across his body invoking a fascinated terror.

 _Don't think too much right now about it,_ he told himself.

Though getting the lowdown on angel marriages did skip up a few ranks on his to-do list as he got himself back into the clothes he came back with. They were just him, flannel, t-shirt, boots that were still in other room but everything was as though it was customized for him. Well, minus the bit of dirt that clung to them from their adventures so far but that was far from his top problem right now. They needed ID's, a car, supplies, weapons, to hunt down his family if any survived –

He made his palms ache against the sharp corner of the counter to slow his mind before opening the bathroom door.

"Sorry," he stupidly said again, taking in Michael's black slacks and blue button down shirt as the angel sat calmly waiting. "Didn't mean to freak. Just that we were naked."

Because as Dean would say, stating the obvious was his forte for times like these.

"There is no shame in that."

"You're an angel." Since he was on a roll with this and all.

"I have already stood naked before you, Sam, just in a different way." Michael tilted his head in that angelic way of theirs as Sam felt words fail him yet again. "I would like to see you eat again but after, since you know the affairs of humans better, we will follow your path."

"Okay," he got out thankful for the conversation shift. "Do you, uh know the specifics for where and when we are?"

"February 3rd, 2012. It is five forty-two in the morning just outside of Lawrence, Kansas."

It was then that Sam's still slightly fried brain decided he was married to Google Earth.


	3. Chapter 3

Libraries had stringent rules. Sam was still rather ticked over it all as he shifted in the too small chair that dug into his back with a savage kind of glee. Apparently, there had been a rash of book thefts or something while they were on their hell tour. It wasn't like they were homeless. Well, at least the library had no reason to think that. Yet they needed a card to use the computers and a card seemed to require three forms of ID, two references and a parental note. Probably his first born or left kidney later on but they hadn't made it that far.

The notebook in front of them was almost too bright as it loaded up its setup screen, low blue gloom as the noise around them swallowed the welcome tones like a quick snack.

"Something cheap," he had said, after looking over their small pile of money this morning that was both a lot and nothing at all. Something that would just let them look up things and type. Cheap but workable was a thing and he was fully impressed they could get something without resorting to one of Dean's favored personal discounts. Those ones consisting of five fingers, quick tongues and, when he was little, fast feet.

Michael's hand was on his wrist as it laid on the table, thumb still keeping time and Sam was half tempted to ask if that was the beat of heaven. He could just hear Dean's verdict over just where they were, some coffee house that catered to people in business attire with cells glued to their palms. It was close and they could siphon free internet. People glanced at them, not that it bothered him. It barely registered, in fact, that perhaps people thought there was a whole other situation going on than just waiting on the notebook to do its thing.

What was bothering him, however, was the noise. That terrible, constant clatter of dishes and coffee makers and chairs scraping on the stylishly unfinished floor. All the voices melting into one continuous noise and damn, even colors now astounded him The angel had been amused earlier when he had seen a bouquet that seemed to consist of the most brilliant flowers in existence and had gotten caught up in trying to take them all in.

No, colors or touching or eating or even the need for pissing were welcomed and marvelous additions to his life right now, overwhelming but still wondrous. But all that sound, Christ, it wasn't even that busy here.

Sometimes he was terrified it was all a trick, that nothing was really here.

"Sam." Michael was to his left and closer now. "Just focus on me and what we are doing."

Blinking, he ran his free hand down his face, letting the world slide back to a distant tinny buzz. He found the notebook patiently waiting for him to input something, curser flashing. How longer was he just sitting here staring as though the ceiling was fascinating?

This, this he could do this.

"Sorry," he muttered, typing in what the thing wanted. Michael's exasperation levels he guessed were rising by how much quicker the angel kept time against his skin.

"Stop apologizing. Now then, are we getting somewhere or will this infernal contraption want a full family history?"

And, he was not the only one who remembered the library. Sam snorted.

"Yeah, see, just need to setup the WiFi so it sees this and –" he watched the connection form, the little symbol showing all was good to go. "It's not secure here but it's enough for what we need."

Michael was overly attentive to his typing, hand on his shoulder now and Sam was thankful it hadn't left. That strange need to be always close and nothing was ever enough. He was certain that they could be fused together and he'd still demand more and it had to be the angel thing between them. Some weird bonding that he was sure humans weren't supposed to be running around doing but he did anyways because he was a Winchester.

At least it was something to focus on that wasn't all the strangers having their noisy lives nearby. Or from obsessively looking at the phone by his cup. The one just bought along with the laptop that he stared at with hopeful dread that it would ring once Dean dragged his ass up and checked his messages this morning.

Nothing was ever that easy.

The first link that came up was something he had been dreading. Bobby had long been established in terms of having a home, of people in one place knowing him, even if it was just as the town drunk. It made sense for there to be something written; for some mention of a taxpaying person dying in relative obscurity as few knew he had been out there trying to save the world to keep being able to pay taxes.

"I am sorry, Sam," Michael was saying as he scanned the obit which was normal until it wasn't.

"Wait, we are actually back on earth, earth, right?" he asked, feeling the angel peer at him to see if some other little piece of Sam had fallen loose. "I mean no zombie uprising, no big mass resurrections or –"

"Nothing of that nature. Such things would leave an echo," Michael said and Sam did not want to think that a zombie uprising could actually be a thing. "A single resurrection is something I would not be able to sense in my current state."

"Here," Sam pointed at the screen. "I mean, the peaceful passing in his sleep part is a hoot but the date. Look at the date. It's only a few weeks ago and I watched him –" he curled his hands in his lap unable to find the words to say what Lucifer had done. "Is there anything by us? I mean, bad supernatural type things."

"Nothing near us that I can sense or smell."

He flipped to their account for some of the phones, grateful Dean hadn't changed the password recently or the billing. The location of Dean's main phone – he sucked his breath through his teeth.

"Guess that's where we're going," he said trying to grasp the final tatters of faith he still dared to have.

 **XX**

* * *

Even with the windows rolled down for the last three hours, the combined smell of nachos and feet lingered stubbornly on. Having a scent diversity that went beyond burning flesh and soul had its downsides, but he'd still take 'nacheet' over nothing.

The truck they had wandered off with looked like it would be at home in Bobby's scrapyard. While someone had tolerated it enough to keep it running smoothly the truck bed was a peppered with dry rot, red paint peeling showing small primer patches, faded maroon seat fabric was threatened at any moment by unruly springs, and the whole cab had an air of being lost in time. A musty scent under the nacheet lingered, as if it too didn't belong in the world anymore.

Everything was still flat, the landscape a rolling sea of brown with clusters of trees still barren as they roared down back highways. All of it smearing and blurring in sameness until it centered on that yellow line that he followed and nothing felt quite seated. There were brief, random moments that he expected gravity to refuse its work, to watch the dirt and them lift off and fly into the sky before he woke. What he would find when that happened he didn't know, he didn't know what Lucifer had done and he glanced over.

The angel was leaned back on his portion of the bench seat, unbuttoned collar flipping in the wind tunnel caused by open windows. That blue soft cloth that made his eyes put clear skies to shame, as though he had snatched some part of heaven on his way out of hell. His legs stretched out, dark hair flipped at odd angles with hands clasped in his lap patiently waiting for the slow human travel portion to be over.

Sam blanked his mind to traitorous thoughts that angels shouldn't be striped of things they were shaped with.

"Should I ask why you're smiling?" since he was fairly sure that's what the little pull at the angel's mouth was.

"I was thinking of what Gabriel would say about my assisting you in your car theft."

"He would mock you endlessly," Sam said, no hesitation.

It helped not to think of the gaps Michael had filled in. Of finding his baby brother dead, wings burned in a silent effigy in that God forsaken hotel. Of how that was the final hammer against the nail that made Michael know he could not walk away.

 _Think of a naked man before a starving lion, Sam,_ the angel had whispered in hell. _That was the power difference between them, only Lucifer did not need to strike._

Shifting, Michael said something so quiet that Sam almost didn't catch, not that hearing helped. It was in that language of theirs, all husky and always an octave below angry. He didn't want to press, not something he knew was still open and bleeding, and relished the comforting rhythm of the wind flowing around them.

"So, want to fill me in on not just hot lining it up to heaven?" he finally asked when another hour has pushed past.

"I cannot hear heaven and Raphael is," Michael paused and Sam felt this was a terrible sign. "It would be unwise to contact him in our current situation."

Sam nodded since that was all there was to do.

"In fact," the archangel continued, "for a long time I felt he preferred Lucifer's vision, of humanity scrubbed out. My indifference allowed such a thing to fester in my want for the final command to be finished."

The way he said it, so final in that verdict as if there wasn't another way ever and he killed the words he wanted to say. He risked another glance over instead. Not much had changed and he wondered if Michael could hold one position for centuries without an urge to move. There was a want to press, to ask how the angel really was but he figured all he would get would be some form of 'functional'.

Sam wondered how many eons had dragged past with the angel just barely this side of operational.

"Things feel less, uh, floaty," he offered as the radio was broken and the silence was too great now. Like he couldn't hit a happy medium on sound tolerance and yeah, that was probably a broken Sam thing.

"Good, it will improve."

Silence again and he knew he was fidgeting. Fingers drumming, free foot thumping against the floor as if tempting it to fail as the bed had. Michael had been present for the creation of pretty much everything, was sitting here with him, and he had so many questions about just that. His inner geek, as Dean would bemoan, longed to know how the stars were created, where the moon came from. Or maybe just the base question of how the hell this bond thing worked and what exactly Michael had done, outside of soul spackle, since answers over that were vague.

Vague was such a bad thing in his world. Vague was what got them into trouble, him and Dean. It was the hint of enough to draw them to trouble but not offer anything of value on how to scrabble back out. And vague was what he got when he knew it went far beyond ripping little angelic pieces off to save a pesky human intent on flaming out.

Yet, just seeing the angel so damn solemn and unmoving made the questions die in his throat.

Most of what he knew of Michael, of what he had experienced, where the worst moments in this creature's existence peppered with brief flares of joy. There had to be more, there had to be a greater number than just some bare minimum of happy times. Christ, him and Dean had screwed up childhoods but he thought they managed more joy than that. At least up to the last couple of years when everything went so wrong so fast.

Maybe he had been wrong about that too.

He blinked a few times, pushing away that blurring of his vision and that need to touch. The deep ache of how they had been in hell and Christ, he was missing something from hell. When it felt more threatening, like everything was about to spill out the angel shifted. An arm across the back of the seat, hand loose on his shoulder. He caught his sigh just before it found freedom.

 **XX**

* * *

"You should rest."

A flat statement and he wanted to protest, point out just how fine he was. They hadn't crashed, the truck was on the road nice and straight. It wasn't even that late and they had hundreds of miles to cross and it wasn't going to get done if he stopped.

But he knew, oh he knew it was coming back. The world feeling decidedly more ethereal, finicky in how much it desired to exist for him. He was starting to jump at shadows he thought were caught in the headlights but weren't actually there. It didn't take fabulous angel powers to know he needed a break.

"Can you drive? Do angels drive?" Not that he wasn't sure Michael couldn't master vehicle mechanics after having to herd heaven into not self-destructing. "Stupid question. I mean you can figure it out."

"You need actual rest –"

"I can sleep here," and he didn't mean to sound so defensive, for the words to have that much bite. "Used to it, I mean. Sleeping in cars."

"Sam, it would be ideal –"

"I can't, we have to get there –"

"Samuel, listen to me," and he was instantly reminded of John with that tone. The one that said 'you will do this because I know best' and it bristled inside him. "It will restore your sense of reality faster. Whatever has happened, it has been a few weeks. A few more hours is not going to make a difference."

"Yeah, well, I guess you say that 'cause it's not your brother."

He instantly regretted those words, grateful he couldn't see the angel's face in the low light of the dash dials. There was a volatile mixture of anger and grief sloshing freely in him, waiting to mix to the right equation to just explode. He hated that the angel was right. He hated that he got to rest while Dean could be suffering.

Michael didn't offer anything else but when a sign came up proclaiming a decent place he eased them off onto the exit. At least he had managed to make some form of ID for them they could stay at a place that didn't have a weekly murder rate. Well, if they had more of a choice then a spot on the side of the road and he inwardly sighed.

"Sam," the angel said, catching his sleeve as he made to get out. It had started pouring again, the sound loud and tinny, drowning out his ragged breath. "You are my priority now."

"Yeah," and he choked in the strange bitterness that was blooming sharp, that all of this was too little, too late. "I get it. Got to protect the broken, freak human. The weak link you've been saddled with."

He was opening the door, shirt almost free of those fingers when Michael curled them firmly around.

"Stupid child. Why must you always push?"

"Because I'm stupid," Sam said dully, feeling the exhaustion all at once as rain found its way in through the partially opened door. All driving and cold that soaked in deeper than it should have.

Michael released him, turning his focus back to the blue stucco wall they were parked in front of, as if daring it to vex him too.

 **XX**

* * *

At least waking up this time around was going better. One he had clothes on. And two, while he was not alone, Michael was sitting on top of the covers leaned back against the headboard with the notebook balanced on his lap.

He could have done without waking up with his face smooshed against the archangel's hip, however.

"You are fine, Sam," Michael told him, tone not as dull as it had been the night before. "If I minded you touching me, you wouldn't be."

Not that the subtle threat of violence did much to help him feel endeared and Sam worked on getting himself less horizontal and more joined with the waking world. Some secret holed up compartment of his brain gave him the image of his sleeping self constantly chasing Michael around the bed until said angel just gave up the fight. As if there weren't a selection of other, perfectly viable seating options in the room beginning with the other bed and not ending with the chairs.

"What?" Michael was saying and Sam was so glad that mind reading wasn't currently a thing.

"Nothing. Weird dreams."

He left off the other questions, such as why. Last night had been an endurance of silence and cold stares, of clipped words and little else. Sam had been far more convinced he would wake up alone, Michael having left to go start walking to where ever he felt instead of staying. Yet here he was, looking comfortable as always, hair smoothed into its slick sheen with clothes all neat and proper.

Sam tried not to contemplate what archangels without wings did while their human charges slept. Some things were better off left to the void.

"Guessing you're researching," he ventured, getting himself unwound from a layer of sheets and the cheap comforter that felt like sandpaper against bare arms. At least he could trust Michael not to sit in bed with him while surfing for dubious things, like porn. Unlike Dean, who had no natural boundaries of good taste. Sam secretly thought his embarrassment was the real entertainment for his brother. It was something he tried to classify as an annoying, enduring and disturbing older brother thing.

"For omens."

Sam rubbed at his face, trying to push away the 'just came too' feeling, knowing he should be grateful for the free internet and it providing distraction to the sleepless being currently bound to him. At least he hadn't woken up to Michael's focus entirely on him. A handful of Cas experiences in that regard had taught him Dean's complaints of creepiness were well founded on that front.

"Anything interesting?"

"Actually, yes." Michael was already turning the overly luminescent screen towards him and he flipped on the beside lamp to lessen glare. A room of nondescript browns, both intended and earned with age, swam up into his blurry vision and he squinted. "An unprecedented storm about a month ago."

The headline stood out in its black bold face, "Falls Under Siege From Mother Nature" with photos of mauled trees and shattered glass. A caption informed him of record breaking winds and hail stones, among other affronts to the locals.

"Demons?"

"Angels," Michael said quietly. "The article states that some residents reported shrill, siren like sounds and earth movements. Of course, the scientists'," and Sam smiled at the air quotes, "claim it was from the unparalleled storm."

"So a heavenly brawl?" His brain was finally slipping itself into drive. They were going to the right place, just not towards anything bearing good news. "Some sort of spat that was angry, but not to a city destroying level?"

"I believe that is the situation," Michael said, snapping the notebook shut. "Sam, we need weapons."

"Something like guns we'd have a hard time getting currently." He tried to think about what they could actually use. Wasn't like they had easy access to holy oil and not a whole lot else worked on heaven's rodents outside of actually getting one of their swords or banishing them. Which would probably banish Michael too. He so did not want a phone call from a grumpy archangel sort-of spouse stuck somewhere, like Australia.

"Knives?"

"Those are easier. Plus, we need to pick up supplies and make holy water. Don't know exactly what's floating around out there at this point. With all of this."

"I will need something to engrave with," Michael stated with a look that clearly expected this to happen within the next hour or so.

"Yeah, okay," Sam finally stood, trying to stretch that weariness that seemed deep this morning. To loosen up joints that still felt stiff from not being lived in. "I can be ready in a few."

As he ambled to the bathroom he made himself not think about the possibility that Dean had been caught up in an angelic free for all, or Bobby for that matter. As though his brain ever obeyed him and he couldn't abandon it or the sudden cut of grief, deep and black, that he had lost Bobby all over again.

 **XX**

* * *

He held in a curse as the truck hit another small hole and glanced at the angel living dangerously across from him. Michael was completely unphased, knife still balanced against his thigh as he carved into the blade. Of course he had gotten the lecture that it wouldn't hurt him, that he still retained his healing powers for his vessel.

What he really hadn't needed was the live demonstration of the archangel stabbing himself to drive that point him, literally. Nope, hadn't needed that in his life at all or the ideas of Michael testing his limitations in bloody fashion while he slept.

So the last couple of hours where him silently sweating in fear and Michael probably laughing at him without showing a trace of it. He'd like to point out that he could worry however much he wanted, and about whom he wanted, thank you very much when a flash interrupted his ruminations. Michael was inspecting the blade in the light before sliding it into its sheath. He was fairly certain that was the second, which was good as they were closing in on Bobby's old place.

"Sam," Michael said, tone with that same odd flatness. Sam made a noise that he was listening. "Pull over."

Some wild thought rattled loose, one proclaiming that the angel was just going to stab him and leave him out here for being annoying. Drive off in their stolen truck while laughing and damn, his mind was gone. Not that he couldn't get those thoughts to stop boiling over but he did as asked, the shoulder wide enough. It hadn't occurred to him in his unfounded fear to turn off the truck until Michael reached over and did it for him.

Engulfing silence and he was suffocating from that alone.

"I do not know what you want from me," Michael finally stated and Sam looked over. The angel was rigid, more than usual, hands on his knees as he took in the road stretched before them, every part of him was tensed to the point of snapping. "I do not know what you want me to say, or what to say that would make you understand I want to be here with you."

"Because it's better than hell?" He hadn't meant to say that, to sound so trite. With a lack of anything to do with himself he leaned an elbow on the door, paint flaking off in small dusty clouds of white from the friction. He couldn't look back over, eyes on the fields outside trying to come out of winter and be green. "I'm the reason you got stuck down there –"

"Stop!" and Michael was right there. There hadn't been a sound, no movement of the springs, no warning creak from shifting weight. The angel so close he could feel his breath on him. "You have to stop this."

"It's true," Sam offered because it was. "Even if you're the reason I exist to be a meat puppet, that doesn't mean I didn't do all the other stuff."

"I refuse to pity you, Samuel Winchester. And I will not listen to you drowning in it for yourself."

Sam surprised himself when his response was a laugh, coarse and harsh against the absurdity of all of this. "And what am I then? Cause I'm pretty sure I'm the boy that almost ended the world because he thought he knew better. That everything I touch is always doomed to break."

"Foolish child," and Michael was somehow closer, hand in his hair and that heat a cloying blanket moving in layers over him. "Look at me."

Those eyes, they scared him as though they were in the process of dissecting and judging his soul. He wished he could channel his brother, have some smartass thing to tell off all of this. Yet, that attempt was flat and he just stared back, asking, "How can you stand to even touch me after what I've done?"

That hand tightened in his hair, and he made himself not show that it was a beat from pain.

"You think you have a specialty on sin, Sam, knowing mine?" That voice was commanding, as if mere moments from liberating his head from his shoulders and he shivered under its weight. "Why must you continually wear it like your shame is a mark of pride?"

Sam didn't have an answer to that. He opened and closed his mouth like a beached guppy unable to grasp the whole breathing idea until Michael blessedly continued.

"Redemption, Sam, is not wallowing in the pain of the past." His hair was released, fingers rubbing along his scalp. It was something he would never have, a strange twisted peace that it was always beyond him. "You have to forgive yourself, not idealize or rationalize it."

"Have you? Forgiven yourself, I mean?"

The words stumble free as the cab was suddenly much too constricting without the free flowing air from vents and windows. Even this early in the year it was too warm in the sun, a glare across the windshield from its harsh hands and he wanted to open the door. Get himself into clear air that was a luxury. Just feel and know it was real.

Michael drew away and Sam looked, seeing that carefully crafted blank face that didn't reach those eyes. Something was pressed into his hands and he saw it was one of the knives in its sheath. He slid it out a bit, looking at the marks, brilliant and true against the steel. Deep enough to stay but light to not advertise what it was until the last moment.

"That one is yours," the angel said. "I do not regret being with you."

Swallowing, Sam pinned the blade between his thigh and the seat before turning the keys. Engine roaring as Michael rearranged himself on the passenger side. For one brief shining moment he almost let it slip that he was afraid. Afraid that Lucifer had them and that this was a trick to break them more. To watch them grow close only to rip it away by the reality of hell.

He couldn't and he pulled the truck back onto the road, not wanting to know if Michael might feel the same.


	4. Chapter 4

Quiet settled around them as the engine pinged, a metallic sound and there was a sense of wrongness, of something not quite right yet hard to place as they sat in the truck at the start of Bobby's driveway. Michael was leaning out the window, head tilted back, eyes closed like a hound after a scent. Sam figured that was what was happening over there, trying to catch the fragments of what might have lurked here or still did.

The house had a lost look, boards over all the windows, paint peeling in large, thick curls as if something beyond sun and wind had come through. Skeletons of hulking cars, some that were still salvageable were sitting silent, rusty witnesses that had no words and the bare ground was harsh against the fading light of afternoon.

It looked like a place they would investigate, something forgotten and not once considered home.

"Whatever angels were here have been gone for some time. There is nothing else but small animals."

Michael's verdict shook him back to this minute, and he held in a comment that would end up calling him something like Cujo.

Dean would have a better comeback, he was always better at those. Probably from watching TV instead of researching to save their asses.

It was a beat before he realized Michael was waiting for him, hand on the door handle, staring with some kind of eternal patience for Sam to collect his crap and be ready for what was here. He wasn't sure he was as he pushed his own open, the angel following his lead, doors whispering closed.

Would do no good to make too much noise as he wasn't sure if there were eyes still set on this place.

Even before he reached the yard proper he realized why the ground seemed so bright, so massively glare inducing. Hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of glass were everywhere. Not one was over an inch big and not one of the old wrecks or windows still had some left in their frames. The mirrors on cars had even popped and it was like walking on sharp gravel, the sound of cracking and grinding under his boots.

The holy water flask was heavy in his shirt pocket providing the only sense of familiarity, something almost forgotten but it was little comfort looking at the destruction here.

"Leaning towards angels," and he was surprised he still had a voice.

"We do not know what happened yet."

Sam knew that was to his worry that Dean did not survive this, that he went the same as Bobby and some helpful good Samaritans from town had covered the windows while the city hungrily waited to collect on an heirless corpse. Or worse, carted off because he was a true vessel and Raphael was probably all focused on that little world ending battle. Dean was off limits in that way but some things were worse than death and he doubted heaven was ignorant of that fact.

"Don't think Bobby went softly."

"We will look around outside first," was the only response and he made his mind stay on what was around him and not sink into unprovable what if's.

It was lonely. That was the only word he had for this. Reflections of skinned metal twisted up like strange offerings to the sky off in the back. No true signs of life, no attempts at clean up and his stomach did a strange sinking twist at the sight of Bobby's study boarded. Those windows, where they sat with the grumpy old hunter making demands and being his general _hard to get along but can't live without_ self.

Then his feet were moving quickly towards stains still working on fading as his eyes were faster than his processing. Splattered across the feeble weeds, the earth, the tiny crystal fragments of windows was something dark and once liquid. There were deep indentations in the earth here, the sign of something heavy being slammed down a few times, pushing the glass into the ground until it became a dazzling misshapen mosaic.

"Angelic." Michael was beside him and Sam didn't know to be relieved or worried more. "At least this portion is. I can still smell the lost grace mixed in the blood."

Turning, he searched the nearby area, looking for a sign and he found it in a beige minivan. Its back end looked punched in, a muddy red streak as a scar across the paint. He was over and touching it, unable to stop himself.

 _Angelic_ , he wanted to believe that but something in him knew better.

"I do not know who it belongs to, Sam. It may be what happened to your friend."

Fingers on the streak, its color cemented from long hours under the sun's heat. Blood and pain, his family suffering and there was little to be learned by dwelling on it.

The porch railing by them was partially broken, one side a collection of splinters and wood pieces scattered across the stairs. Some of the nearby slates of the house were cracked and warped from whatever was thrown at them. All that was left out here were the small tells of violence but it was enough to know they were too late in many ways.

"We should look inside."

Of course the door was locked but before he had a chance for anything Michael merely gave it an encouraging shove by the deadbolt. A tearing sound, more wood breaking then it swung open as if it had been open all that time.

He swallowed a comment on over kill and made a mental note to ask the angel just how strong he was. It made him wonder how he saw, what he actually smelled. If he could turn it off, or if he took in everything here; monsters, exhaust fumes, death and decay, mold.

It made him feel slightly guilty that he had been put off by the nachos and feet comb their stolen truck had going on.

It was black inside, an artificially induced night from all the missing windows and he mentally scolded himself. Thankfully, Bobby was a pack rat. In the light forcing its sway in thin blades from the door, he found a flashlight in the third drawer. He should have known that.

As he pulled it out his hand brushed something familiar. Dean's phone, battery dead but still there and he understood why his brother did not pick up now.

He left it where it was, it seemed wrong to move it.

Weak beam as all of Bobby's stuff seemed to be at least a decade old or it wasn't welcomed in the house but it was enough. Sweeping it across the kitchen he saw a chair knocked over, fridge door swayed out advertising its defunct status. Shelves were empty, thick dust had settled and made a home as quickly as it could and it all had a forgotten air.

Walking into the study he saw Bobby's desk divested of its drawers. They laid in a helter-skelter pile, the lock on one looking as though it had been pried open with a tool close to a flat head screwdriver. All of Bobby's work, his research was gone from here. Even photos, the few the man had had had been stripped from their frames. Like he was erased and Sam chocked back a noise crafted from grief.

It was clear that at least one thing was right, that Bobby was, for all purposes, most likely dead if this was the aftermath.

Michael came to him from where he had been looking over the front entry, placing a hand on him. "Someone's here."

"Angel? Demon?" He almost included _'other'_ since given their lives that was a distinct possibility.

"Human."

It could be Dean but he doubted it given the state of things and he eyed their escape routes. Nothing looked promising as he heard the back door hinges whine softly at the request to open more. They fell back to the front, which looked rather unusable given that it was nailed shut with plywood instead of windows. He cursed his rustiness for leave the other door open like a big welcome sign yelling ' _Here! They're right here!'_. Footfalls soft and steady and he switched off his light as whoever it was entered the kitchen. Even if Michael wrenched the door behind them open, the noise would be a giveaway and the front yard has little cover. He did not look forward to being shot in the back.

He tugged at Michael, hoping to show which way to go in the gloom that was lazing and hazy all about them. Years in this house, knowing it, praying nothing was discarded or tipped over in their way. He felt the chill of the door pull under his fingers as he gave the door from the hallway to the kitchen an encouraging shove.

It was the old wood and bad brass that gave them away, that final inch causing the door to squeal in some sort of wounded protest. Moving fast now, at the table when a high powered beam was on them, turning his world white with a scattering of black dots and he blinked rapidly.

"Stop or I'll shoot. Hands were I can see them. Drop your weapons. I said drop."

A woman's voice strong and clear and he did it, knife nosily meeting the floor. Shit, police were not what they needed.

"Outside, now." She was close, at the doorway between the study and the kitchen and Sam felt it wise to follow her instructions. He had no idea if she was armed or with what, as he made his way to the back door, the world exploding back into his vision.

There were down the stairs before they stopped, Sam still mulling over whether or not she would shoot them if they made a run for it. Something clattered against the porch and he realized she had picked up their weapons and moved them with her till this point. Turning he saw her, eyes sharp with her dark hair pulled back, thin face displeased and something else he couldn't name.

She was familiar and then he had it, that tan uniform, gun belt heavy with supplies as the weapon was already drawn and trained on them.

"Sheriff Mills?" he tried which only served to make her look unhappier.

"Dead thing should stay dead, Sam Winchester. I've learned enough to know that. Don't nothing come back the right way the second time."

Memories of having to shoot her zombie son who was busy eating his own father were far brighter and more real to him now than they had a right to be.

"Why do you think I'm dead?"

"I was with your brother when we burned you, near out of his mind with grief."

A small sound did make its way out of him then, he just couldn't process anymore. Dean thought he was dead. His brother thought he had salted and burned him and Oh God, what had happened? They were supposed to be safe. Him in hell was supposed to help Dean have a normal life, have a chance to be with Lisa and have a family, finally.

To know what rest was even with him in hell. Sam had hoped that maybe Dean could find a thread of happiness.

"We have been in hell, sheriff," Michael finally added, the angel taking her in, stoic and statue like and he worked on being that same, cool collective calm.

The way she stood telling him she didn't want to shoot them, but she would if she had too.

"And who is we?" She asked, her posture not changing but a slight tension was winding higher.

"Michael. I was imprisoned with Sam and my brother."

She scoffed, some guttural disbelieving sound. "The archangel? Even if it was true, can't say it helps a lot given what I've seen. Besieds, why didn't you just fly?"

"When I was freed I was bound to this flesh," Michael said, watching her, making slow measured movements to his right and Sam wanted to tell him to knock that shit off.

"You're asking to be shot," she told him, gun never leaving him and Sam made a small noise of agreement until he figured it out.

"Outside of cutting myself open with one of those knives, it's the only way to prove to you what I am."

Sheriff Mills was weighing her options. Sam could tell the way she clenched her jaw and then her right shoulder stooped in some kind of resignation.

A flask was being tossed to him and he scrambled to catch it. Silver, worn with small marks and he opened it, taking it drink. Bitter salt water that he assumed had seen a blessing at one point. He passed the bottle to Michael who followed suit.

"No tricks, do what you saw you are going to do then place the weapon on the ground."

"I understand."

She did a soft ball under hand throw of the knife from where she stood and Michael had it in hand after it shuffled and spun across the dry earth. He rolled his sleeve up and just plunged it in his arm, taking the blade down as grace flowed tinged a red sheen of blood before flesh began immediately stitching itself back together.

"Jesus," she got out and Sam had to agree with her after that terrible demonstration. "Leave it all on the ground and walk towards my car, hands were I can see them at all times."

The dull thump of the flask falling and hitting the ground as he turned, hand still up, glass a loud accompaniment as they followed their path back to the truck. Her car was behind it, probably got there when they were in the kitchen and he was searching. Just far enough away that it would sound like a car passing on the road and not one pulling in.

"Stand against the car, put your hands on it."

He did as he was told feeling himself being relieved of his flask, phone and salt before the cuffs were slapped on his wrists and he tried for a positive thought. That maybe this wasn't as bad as it looked and she did look pretty freaked out. If he was her and had someone over a head taller lumbering around he'd want them restrained too.

The part he was annoyed with however, despite everything, was that she looked at Michael and then simply frisked him and let him stand without restraints. Sam figured she didn't want a set of broken handcuffs if she had seen what the angel had done to one door lock.

"Get in," she said opening the back door. "Don't make any trouble."

"Where are you taking us?"

"Somewhere safer to talk. Don't think it is here."

As much as he wanted to, he knew it wasn't the place to question just why that was and he watched Michael get in and then move over for him to get his gigantic ass into the car as Dean would say. She helped him not knock his head, her hand gentle and not showing hostility. Sam was slightly embarrassed as he should be better at this. Wasn't the first time he'd ever been restrained and arreseted.

As the door slammed he glanced over at Michael and his damn free hands who seemed slightly amused over his current situation. He honestly felt like kicking him because obviously, cuffs, he couldn't just punch him. Because Dean would also be the person finding this hilarious and it just wasn't fair. He didn't ask to be this big and he breathed, trying to focus on the unfairness of this all instead of what happened when they got here.

"Sam, she is unsure and it is a wise decision."

Michael's lip service did him little favor and he breathed in again, trying to remember the whole keep on living again. He glanced out the rear window and saw that she had holstered her gun, her phone out to her ear as she walked towards the house.

"She is human."

He nodded, rolling his neck to try to get it to pop, to make it feel used and actually his own as he was still have drifting problems with that.

It was hard not to let the claustrophobia get's its needles all up under his skin which was a tall order when trapped in a muggy car with the faint scent of vomit mixing in with the food smells back here. There was a Plexiglas barrier with air holes cut into it, letting him see into the front where her jacked and laptop lay, radio on low as dispatch carried on with orders too soft to fully make out.

There was still no Dean and his brother was in worse trouble with no one left to help except the sheriff.

"Sam."

Michael moved his thumb across the back of his hand again and all Sam wanted as to bury his face against Michael's chest. Like he had been and hadn't in hell all that same time. When Michael appeared small and spread across the universe all at once.

"Someone tortured my family, made it so they were in danger and Dean had to –"

"Concentrate on what we are doing. We can change none of that. We can, however find out as much. I do not feel she is dangerous or the maker of rash decisions."

He turned to see out the back, knowing he needed to pay attention to her. She was moving on the phone, walking back, watching the car.

"I just – we need to go faster."

"I believe it will, that we will gain allies Sam. I am willing to endure the tests if it gives us answers."

All he could do was nod stupidly and watch her move all their things over to the trunk of her car, the lid slamming down hard and he jumped. Something was so final in that noise and he felt Michael's hands in his hair, sliding down to his cheek, thumb moving in small circled beneath his eye.

She was getting in and saw them like this and he was not ashamed. He didn't know how she would feel but as she sat in the front, watching there was something of interest and Sam wanted to close his eyes and couldn't.

He needed to pay attention. There were answer to what happened to his brother here.

Finally, she started the car, driving away from the gutted house he had once thought of as maybe being a home, even in his mind.

 **XX**

* * *

 **XX**

Twenty minutes.

He was pretty sure it had been twenty minutes but as the angel pressed up against his arm on the back seat of a police cruiser would tell him, he wasn't a good manager of time passing recently.

What he was sure of was that he had gotten his crap to stop hanging out and it was now stowed properly so that he could concentrate on what the hell was going on here. They were out of town, and she was driving along a back road; some old highway that used to be important but fell to the ideas that any good road had more than two lanes and that newer was always better.

Sheriff Mills glanced back at them occasionally but there wasn't anything that keyed him in to danger. She was distrustful, sure, he didn't blame her but he didn't feel like she was going to pull over, walk to his door and put a bullet in his skull either.

Plus, he doubted she would do that while he had heaven's tank beside him because a bullet wouldn't slow Michael down and if he was bleeding with a shattered brain Michael would be all kinds of angry.

Well, at least he hoped so. He tried not to think about what angelic spouses do or that he actually had one because that idea was still too big at times and too normal. Something he accepted and was in denial of, the archangel was just there and he hated and longed for it.

At least she had lowered the windows a bit to get some fresh air, breathing in the scent of just turned fields ready for planting and the dusty smell of empty furrows.

"How long?"

Her voice was all crackling with the moving air but he caught it, not quite getting it at first.

"How long, ma'am?" and she sighed.

"Jody. You know that. And how long you two been back?"

"Only a couple of days. We came back were we went in," he answered as she slowed to turn into what he thought was a tiny park. "Do you know where Dean is?"

"Haven't heard from him in about a month." She was turning towards them, keys turned to off. Her lips were thin and face pulled tight, some deep unhappiness was settled in her face. "Called me after whatever you saw happened back there. Told me was real banged up and not nearby. Told me he was going to ground."

"We will find him, Sam."

Michael was just there before he knew he need it and he let out a breath. Dean was alive. Alone, hurt, hunted by angels and being a jackass probably, but alive. Just the danger alone of him being isolated and why was his brother so stupid?

"Your brother is resilient. And I know personally that he makes himself very difficult to find," Michael was saying and Jody let out some kind of laugh, agreeing and frustrated and just plain tired.

"No funny business," she warned, opening her own door and he knew she was watching everything they did. "And before you get ideas, someone is meeting us here."

Sam was damn grateful to be out of the car, Michael still close and beside him. The question of who it was coming here died on his lips as her eyebrows shot up, warning she was unamused by questions.

Instead they dutifully went where she pointed, the closest picnic table. It was weathered, faded, and cut deep with people wanting to place a mark with switch blades and anything sharp enough to carve against the aged wood. Three other tables were nearby, all in similar shape. Strong enough to hold a family, banged up enough that no family would want to touch them.

Trees grew tall, straight trunks wide and solid showing their years but the underbrush was clear here. Little obstructed their view as late day sunlight shafted through the shifted canopy of bare limbs just beginning to bud.

"Bobby?" Sam finally found the courage to ask and her face had a s strange firm pulse as she sat down across from them, wood creaking in mild protest.

"A few months ago Dean called me near hysterics. Said you were completely off the rails. You'd had issues before, and frankly didn't want to be in the same room with you. Your brother was worried that something was wrong, that something was broken in you but that night he was beside himself."

She placed her hands folded on the table and leaned forward slightly, her eyes slits as she narrowed them and he already knew. He wanted to beg her not to say it because it couldn't be and it shouldn't be something real.

"Said you killed Singer and he had to hunt you through the yard to put you down."

He was already moving before he beacme aware of anything else, feet stumbling and his face nearly met the ground because his hands were cuffed and not available for fall breaking.

His stomach was empty outside of a little bile but it emptied anyways. This wasn't reality, this was some messed up world that Lucifer had made for them. Some little sparks of happiness while Satan striped away everything else. They hadn't made it out, there hadn't been some hand of God rescue and all the people he loved and cared for would die all because of what he was.

Hands were on him, he was distantly aware there was shouting before a loud pop and his hands were useful and they clutched at his thighs, jeans rough and almost there but not enough.

"Sam."

"He has us, doesn't he? We didn't get away and this is eternity, isn't it?"

"Oh, Sam, no."

Michael was there, squatting in front of him, taking his hands and it was close. Rough skin tracing the grooves and soft lines of blue veins under that skin.

"Sam, do you trust me? Even if I cause you a little pain do you trust me?"

"Yes."

Because whatever this was didn't matter for that and he thought Jodi was by them. He braced for a bulled but it didn't come.

Instead, Michael was turning his hand over, fingernail pressed against the knuckles before he applied just enough to sheer that thin cover, to start to expose the bone. He winced, tried to draw his hand away and everything felt more snapped into place.

"Trust in me," Michael said and Sam felt something stir, some flash of heat under all those lines they shared as the angel placed his palm against the wound. Small blood smears on that skin, staining the cells in soft whorls. Sam thought the angel was bleeding for a second too.

"Do you trust in me?"

"Yes."

Something snapped and strengthened and everything was suddenly brighter, sharper and Michael let out a breath as he bowed his head, trying to take in Bobby, of what something that appeared to be him had done. Of Dean being tricked into killing what he thought was him.

"I wish you had told me sooner what you feared." Michael's voice was soft and low against his ear. "I may be bound but I know how to access the bond to small degrees if need be. We are free, you and I. I am sorry for your friend."

His vision was a glossy smear then, tears ripe and ready and he let them go, knowing he had lost Bobby all over again without ever being able to say ' _thank you'_ or ' _I'm sorry.'_

Jody moved away, watching them but not hovering as Michael's arm pulled around his waist, he buried his head in the angel's shoulder, glimpses of hell and their small salvation there and he hoped Bobby had made it to heaven.


	5. Chapter 5

Everything was clear, sharp and well defined but seemed to lack its original luminosity that it had held since they first popped up topside. Sam mourned for that a little, the bright sheen that was all over everything, that new feeling that he couldn't quite grasp but enticed him all the same. That strange feeling he could only describe as maybe 'just born', but that was silly, was gone. Instead everything was solid, a firm mass all around him and he knew that it would not waver again.

"I'm surprised you tolerate any of this the way you do."

Michael made no response as they sat at the little picnic table, Jody a ways off on her phone, watching but more at ease. She had taken the remains of the handcuffs off of him once he had gotten a hold of his blubbering self, muttering something about expense reports and he made a mental note to send her money or a new set to her when they were in a better space. Still she had stopped looking at him as though he was secretly rabid and about to foam at the mouth before attacking.

Given what she had been through he didn't really blame her for those looks.

They sat, were they had been for at least a good hour and if Bobby was dead, which he was still trying to wrap his mind around, than the question remained who was left? He wasn't sure or sure he wanted to find out. Only that he was grateful that Dean was alive, perhaps Bobby was with Karen in heaven and maybe at peace as that was the best he had to hope for.

He nudged the angel beside him, who was still staring straight ahead, rigid, unmoving and just plan creepy.

"You make the mistake I am speaking to you currently, Samuel Winchester."

Sam was fairly certain wherever God happened to be currently he was laughing his ass off, most likely just at his misery alone.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously," the angel intoned as Jody was putting her phone away, beginning to make her way towards them. The small cut across his knuckles had a strange sort of throb. One that belonged only to small wounds that shouldn't hurt so badly but still insisted on doing so.

Like papercuts.

"What is it?"

"Sam, in my current state I do not know if you have noticed that I am unable to keep track of you as well as I could have before." Sam made a sound that could have been laughter but that was all kinds of wrong and argument inducing. "I cannot mind read. For something so simply fixed you must tell me and apparently relying on such a thing is unreliable at best."

"Woah. So you're upset over that?"

"Yes, Sam," and oh, he so didn't like how his name was said, "I am upset over that. I do not know if you are simply panicking, drowning in self-pity, gassy or in true need."

Jody was close by now and having little luck hiding the smile that was creeping up.

"Wait, I didn't –"

"Despite your opinion of me, I do understand your shock and grief. But I cannot fix what I do not know is broken. I told you I will do this following your human ways. I did not mean however, that you may treat me as you would your brother."

"I just," Sam stuttered and stopped, not knowing what to say to make things not worse as Jody looked at them then settled herself on her own bench. "He's pissed at me."

"Gathered that. Gathered too that maybe he has a point." She looked at him in a way that made him feel small and distantly reminded him of John in a parental mood before taking in Michael. "You speaking to me?"

"Of course."

"I'd take that as sarcastic but I've dealt with that angel of Dean's before," and Sam managed, just in the nick of time to not jump to his feet because there was only one angel like that.

"Cas? Castiel? He is alive?"

"Thinking it's not something expected, though given your brother's lack of words or use for them I'm not surprised," she answered.

"My little brother has been brought back before. If he was in service to my Father and doing what was just, such a grave sacrifice would not go unrewarded."

Sam swore that almost sounded rote.

"Uh huh," Jody replied, narrowing her eyes a fraction and Sam figured she felt the same. "So, while we wait, want to tell me what this whole thing is?"

"Thing is?" Sam asked her.

"Between you two. I know he worked some kind of, well," she waved a hand, "something on you because you look more focused." She shifted a bit, a soft smile, "At least not screaming into the ground about Satan."

"Sam's soul was extensively damaged in hell. I had to use my grace to keep it together."

"And that's it? That's what this is?"

"No."

Jody sighed down at the table before clasping her hands in front of her. Eyes dark she looked them both over. "If you want help, start talking."

Sam wanted to interject that he would be more than happy to tell her if he even fully understood it but Michael hadn't been all that informative and well, up to now he hadn't really thought to question it. The archangel was still staring off into the middle distance next to him, stiff and unmoving.

"It began the bond between us, nothing more or less." Michael's voice was surprisingly quiet, something under it that Sam couldn't name but he swore reminded him of apprehension. "After that point, it was our interaction while still trapped that brought it to this point."

Somehow, someway, Sam knew it was his fault that he had gotten into this mess. Saddled an archangel to be stuck with him for all time and he wanted to apologize before he felt Michael look over at him.

"I do not regret this, Sam."

He swallowed, since apparently he was failing at words today. Jody was still looking at them but her face had a less hard edge to it.

"So guessing that matching ink there is part of the whole package deal then?" she asked.

"Yeah, it uh, goes all the way up."

"Ah," was all she got out when the sound of another car pulling in made them all look over.

Dusk was putting on a full show for them now as an old beater of a car parked next to the cruiser. Sam felt everything hum inside him, a deep terror as they didn't have many friends and at least one was dead all over again. Something was still so crushing about that and he tried to keep his breath steady, Michael still and watching beside him.

Sam tried to see who it was but the setting sun in his eyes and glare off the glass wasn't helping his cause. Not that he had long to wait as the door groaned open. A tallish man, neat in casual wear with jeans and a work shirt stepped out, boots thumping the pavement. His dark skin was shadowed even in the light of the dying day, a crown of silvery black hair.

"Rufus?" Sam managed as the man came towards them, face solemn.

"Arm," and Sam obeyed knowing what was coming. Sleeve pushed up, the silver knife bled him before he felt the pain of the cut. A motion and Michael willing held out his own arm to have the same done.

Sam was about to ask him – well anything, when he got a face full of holy water followed by the angel with the word 'Cristo' recited for good measure. Some distant part of his still functioning brain was amazed by Michael's restraint. All of this had to feel so beneath something so old, yet not one complainant was uttered. He simply accepted that they needed proof so he allowed them to take it.

"He the angel?" Rufus asked, jamming a thumb towards Michael.

"Mhm," Jody sounded, handing over a weapon into that waiting hand, one of their knives.

"Looks like their freaky language. Bobby showed it to me a few times," Rufus said, turning the blade over in his hands. "I cut you with this?"

Michael laid his arm across the weather battered table. "Only me. Sam is very human and if he is hurt I will be displeased."

The way the angel said it, flat voice and face hard Sam knew it was a threat. One that was not idle and he had the distinct impression that powers or not, Michael could dismember everything here with little effort.

A strange, malfunctioning portion of his brain somehow found that thrilling.

"Fair enough," Rufus was saying. "Deep?"

"Deep."

Sam tried not to suck air through his teeth as the old hunter cut a long chasm down that flesh. Grace exposed for a moment, shining as the skin began to knit together though Michael didn't flinch. Only stared Rufus down and neither of them moved for a moment.

"Well, I'll be damned," Rufus said, passing the blade back to Jody. He went around the table and raised Sam's face up and finally Michael moved, suddenly straddling the bench and hot at his back. "Ain't gonna hurt him. Want to see his eyes."

Michael's arm was fully around him now, hand splayed on his chest. The angel's head was resting on his shoulder and it was a bizarre feeling of safety despite the fact he was fairly certain at least he would be shot if he didn't pass whatever muster Rufus wanted. Everything felt exposed, he didn't know where to look in the fading day and those eyes staring down at him were cold. Even without the wind moving in that moment, he couldn't repress a slight shiver.

Finally, with a grunt Rufus released him, Michael still tense behind him as the old hunter made to sit by Jody.

"What's with the matching body decorations?"

"I told you, they're _together_ ," Jody said, seeming to find something amusing in that. "It's a symbol."

"Uh huh. You do know your brother is gonna kill you when we find him for getting hitched in hell right?"

Sam tried not to curl in on himself out the thought of Dean's very pissed off response and probably righteous fury at being with the angel that had wanted to ride him. He'd be pissed too if Dean brought home Lucifer. Well, he thought, Lucifer was a bit different but still.

"Does that mean you believe us?" he finally got out and received another grunt.

"You actually look like the Sam I met before. I told Bobby that something was up," and Rufus' palm hit the table in anger. "Damn fool, never listened to me none though. What I want to know is what the hell that was running around up here posing as you."

"Sam's body."

They were all looking at the archangel now who had finally released him and was back to sitting more like the rest. Something sick was in him all over again and he was tempted to wretch.

"How?" he whispered, fingers digging into the worn table because he was almost sure he knew part of the answer.

"The Cage," Michael began, looking at the two across from them and Sam wondered if he was deciding on what words it was best to use. "It was designed for things not of the physical realms. Souls, angels, things of that nature. It would be feasible to remove a body much easier without the reopening of the door as the prison was never designed for such a thing."

"And you know this how?"

"I was the one that built it." Michael's voice was calm and Sam watched Rufus' face slide into something that he couldn't quite name.

"So someone pulled it out on purpose then. It wasn't an accident."

Jody had pulled out a flask as she spoke, taking a swig before passing it over. Just by the smell Sam immediately knew it wasn't holy water and he nodded his thanks before taking a drink. The burn cut through some of the hazy grief, although Michael already looked to be plotting to separate him from it.

"It may not have been the original intent," the angel allowed. "The human body is essentially a biological machine. A spark and the heart beats, lungs draw air and it works until one of those systems are impeded. It may not have been obvious at first but," a pause as the angel chose words too carefully, "problems would have become evident."

"Problems," Sam said, voice flat as he was just barely processing.

"It had your physical attributes, yes," Michael said, arm tightening around his waist which was a sure sign of bad news coming. "Without a soul though it would act on biological instincts for survival. No feelings, no remorse, no morality. The most basic of modes probably served by the memories preserved in the brain. Brutal when necessary, anything perceived as a threat neutralized without restraint or conscience."

"Christ."

His voice choked because Bobby had apparently become a threat then Dean…he rubbed at his eyes because they were so not going there again right now. There was only so much he could take in a fucking afternoon and he still had Rufus eyeing him like he was going to go bonkers and kill crazy. Information now, mental breakdowns later, preferably without witnesses.

"I don't understand," he said when his voice returned. "Who would do this?"

"Sixty-four thousand dollar question right there," Rufus muttered. "Don't know much but something big had to do it." Michael nodded and the old hunter rested a hand on his chin. "Some big thing going on with heaven. Don't know a lot about it, didn't want no part outside of helping Bobby occasionally but maybe something with that."

"Perhaps," Michael said and Sam wondered what the angel was thinking, certain he wouldn't like it. "Do you know what angels Dean met with when the incident took place at Singer's?"

Jody shook her head and leaned back a bit, accepting the flask from Sam. She took a good swig. "I would hazard one of them was Castiel but don't know of the others. Everything was just a mess, like what you saw, by the time I got there. Dean didn't call me until hours later."

"Couldn't we just pray to Cas? I mean if he's alive?" he asked.

"Tried that," Rufus said and Sam tried not to think about all that angel blood. "Though maybe he don't like Jews."

Michael made some sort of undignified sound. "I would guess he would come for an ally if he was able. If there are problems in heaven then Raphael is involved and perhaps they are on opposing sides. Given Castiel's previous predilections, I would assume he would fight for humanity over reopening of The Cage. I doubt he is dead given he would be considered valuable, but he may be captured."

"Shame you can't just wing your way up there and knock some sense into them all."

"Apparently, Father would like this solved differently," and oh there was something close to rage under those words seeping out.

"Well, enough of this," Rufus said, getting up. "Idle chit chat ain't going to help us none."

"You believe us?"

"To a point," Rufus allowed, looking him over. "Given the mountain of crap I've seen in my lifetime and the way you two are now makes me believe you are more Sam than what was last calling itself that. Now, trust? Hell no. But believe, well, to a point."

Rufus was starting off back to his car, Jody looking at them as if they were supposed to know what to do and Sam felt confused. Which seemed to be some kind of permanent state for him. The hunter turned, made some sort of impatient gesture as he was beginning to get the gist of what was going on.

"You two are coming with me."

"And where would that be?" Michael asked, making no move to follow.

"To get what Dean left behind."

Sam didn't get it until he did and it hit his chest like a crash. "The car."

"Always were said you were the smart one," Rufus grinned, teeth gleaming dangerously white in the near twilight.

 **XX**

* * *

 **XX**

At least they were on an actual interstate and not on some back wood road driving off to death, Sam reflected watching the headlights go by across the grassy divide. Night had fallen fairly quickly once the sun touched the horizon and the ride had been promised to not be longer than a couple of hours. Which was good because he was uncomfortable even if he had understood and had consented to this. He was big, he got that, knew it. He was what monsters went for first because he was the walking wall and they didn't notice his squirrely brother a few cards short of a deck sneaking up behind them.

They never got that Dean was always the most dangerous one. The one you never turned your back too.

Unless of course, it was his body running around without a soul and something cut deep at that. All the harm that had come and it had come wearing his face.

The edges of the cuffs kneaded into his lower back a bit as he shifted. Michael had thoughtfully seat belted him in before sitting in the front and he was torn about whether that was good or bad. Good because if demons driving semis hit them he wouldn't go flailing through the night. Bad, because he was even more stuck here and it would take a whole lot of maneuvering to get himself free if things went south and luck hadn't been a real strong friend lately.

There wasn't a lot to do in the silence as Rufus apparently did not believe in switching on the radio, at least with potentially murderous passengers, which would appall his brother to no end. So all he had were the sounds of the car. Tires humming on the road, the engine sounding slightly put out, as if protesting all this driving at its age. The occasional extra hum and whoosh of a car passing them on the left. Not that the old hunter drove particularly slow but more that people in the middle of nowhere drove like bats out of hell.

So he bounced his knee up and down, tried to get himself not to wiggle and roll his shoulders when he caught himself doing it. Michael would occasionally glance back at him, the angel always watching everything it seemed like. Making sure there wasn't anything nearby that could harm them.

Rufus glanced back at him, a mixture of amused annoyance illuminated by the dash and other headlights and Sam instantly stopped moving.

"I can stop."

To his surprise what came next was a laugh, sharp but not hostile.

"Just whatever that thing was didn't fidget. Didn't do nothing like a normal person." Sam could see a shake of that head. "Your brother knew. Don't think he wanted to admit it, but he knew."

"Do you know what he did after I – after I fell?" Sam asked, his voice so soft he was surprised he was heard over the sound of travel.

"Don't know a whole lot. Me and Dean, we got along just didn't talk, mind you. Said he tried the whole normal life before he found you. Wasn't really sitting well with him, I don't think. Raised a hunter, I could see why not. That man was born to do it and fixing cars while playing house with you in hell was never gonna last long."

Sam nodded. At least had tried to find some sort of life outside of hunting.

"Bobby told me he never stopped looking, though," and Sam sucked in his breath. "Wanted to find a way to get you out without freeing them angels, no offense."

"None taken," Michael answered passively.

"Until he thought I was back," Sam said, a bitter taste in his throat. He desperately wanted to gank whoever had put Dean through that, did that to his family, slowly and painfully as it screamed.

"We all knew something wasn't right at the end, but your brother, well he's a bit screwy if you haven't noticed."

Sam let out the breath he had been holding, trying to keep in a laugh cause yeah, Dean and mental health didn't have a long term stable relationship by any means. "That's not new."

"Personally, me," Rufus said pointing at himself," am a bit worried he's out in the wind. He's one dangerous bastard when he sets his mind to it. Wouldn't want to be on his shit list and I think them angels at Bobby's weren't just there because they liked the place."

"You think they were after something?" Sam asked, feeling slow on the uptake, watching that head nod. "I don't know what he would –" he stopped because he was so stupid and it hit him in a sudden jolt over how stupid he actually was. The rings. Dean probably still had the rings to restart the war.

There was another nod at his little silent revelation as Michael had shifted to be able to watch him better.

"That boy had the keys to angel time out. Makes him valuable, even more than his meat suit."

"And you know this how?" Michael's voice was so unexpected that he jumped.

"I hear things. How I stay alive. Like how a couple of days ago there was a whole swarm of earthquakes they're still scrambling to explain around that haunted boneyard you two feel in and popped out at."

"Wait – what?" Sam asked, looking at Michael who was definitely more interested in this conversation now. "Did you know that?"

"It was to be expected."

"Well, you could have told me at least."

"I will keep you informed of the ever changing earth in the future, Sam," was the dry response.

He swore, even though it was Michael and very dark that the angel might have actually rolled his eyes. Or it felt like he had, at any rate, which for angels was the same thing.

Rufus snorted. "You two are definitely together," he said and Sam so didn't need another person laughing at him right now as he fumed in the seat. "Here, this is our exit."

He was grateful as the car slowed on the ramp, splashes of orange pooling on the pavement from the large streetlights lining the road. It was fairly big for the middle of nowhere – some little town that wasn't just a spot but not quite big enough to be important. Gas stations, fast food, some distant neon glow that was reminiscent of a small shopping center. Rufus took a couple of turns and his stomach flipped a few times from nerves. That this could still go bad.

"Friend owns it, owed me a favor. Place is warded against most undesirables and needed some place to stash it when we got it fixed."

A series of white buildings were coming up, stationed like little soldiers in the night, dark blue doors in marked contrast as they spread out in rows. Rufus turned into the lot, stopping to roll down a window and punch in a code.

"Don't need it when you leave," he was saying as the gate pulled open. "Just hit the button on the other side."

Sam nodded as the car crept through, a strange feeling after the smoothness of the interstate. Door upon door, their numbers illuminated, some by sickly, sputtering lights until they stopped in front of one. The engine was cut and Rufus was getting out, Michael doing the same. Before he could say anything, the angel was there, unbuckling him and making sure his giant frame didn't catch on anything.

A part of him still thought he was going to be shot out here as the lock was undone.

Light's flickered on as the door rolled up and back, revealing an absolute bucket of wards on the inside. The Impala gleamed black and smooth, proud even in the dire circumstances and Sam breathed out, stumbled forward. His mind making promises to her that he would get her back to Dean, that she didn't have to stay cooped up anymore.

"Now I'm convinced. Only you and your fool brother could get worked up over a car," Rufus complained and Sam held in a sigh.

"I'm sorry –"

"Sam Winchester," Rufus cut in, finger pointed at his chest and there was something in that face that was dark. "I don't forgive. Ever. If Bobby was still here and not stupid he'd tell you the same thing."

"Yes, sir."

"What you are and what that thing was," the hunter continued, looking him over, "are not the same thing, are they?"

"No, sir."

"Then you have nothing to be sorry about."

"Yes, sir," and he felt so small, like it was John scolding him and Dean for breaking one of his many rules and being pissed for them not understanding why it was bad. Michael had glided up silently behind him, rubbing a thumb against a palm of his still cuffed hands.

"Now, I will keep looking for your brother. Same with the sheriff. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"If you hear from your brother, you call me. If you need help identifying something mean and ugly with fangs, you call me. If you have angels and wars, you don't call me. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good," Rufus said, tossing the keys to the cuffs and the Impala to the angel. "Wait till I'm gone."

"Thank you," he said, and meant it.

"Everything should be as it was. It's troubling why your brother felt the need to have so much C4 on hand. Don't crash is what I'm saying," and Sam nodded enthusiastically. Rufus walked back over to his own car, opening the trunk and bringing over their own bags, knives on top. "Don't get eaten."

"Yes, sir."

The old hunter walked back to his car, looking at them as he opened the driver's door. "I'm going east. Don't go east tonight."

"Yes, sir."

The watched Rufus turn the car around and drive away, tail lights disappearing around the corner before Michael finally spoke. "What a strange, angry man he was."

"Probably shouldn't say that to his face," Sam answered as the cuffs were unlocked and he rubbed his wrists to get circulation back.

He picked up their things, opening the Impala's trunk before being hit all over again with grief. It wasn't just Dean's stuff in the back. There was his bag, pushed into the shadows but it was still there. His brother had kept it. Even after all that had happened, what Dean thought he had done, his brother still had it.

"We'll find him, Sam."

He nodded, slamming the trunk closed. Even if Dean could never forgive him, could never even look at him again, he deserved to know he hadn't killed the one thing he had sworn to protect.


	6. Chapter 6

It took a few beats, a couple of extra breaths for his fuzzy mind to click into motion and work out what this soft, warm, and rather nice scent of fresh rain was he had his face pressed into. Who that hand resting between his shoulder blades actually belonged to.

He was nuzzling the angel – archangel – again.

"You do not have to panic every time you wake up," Michael said, amusement floating in his voice and Sam kept his eyes shut because he knew he was being watched. "I have told you, though you are stubborn, that if I did not wish you to touch me you would not be."

Even with his eyes closed he was tempted to roll them but he hesitated on moving for once because, well, it was nice. That strange feeling of safety Michael seemed to give him and after yesterday that he was still trying to claw his way back from. Bobby dead again, Dean in the wind injured and missing, Castiel captured most likely if not dead again –

Stop, he told himself and tried to focus on something positive. They had access to what the Impala had which meant extra cash and a room that had sheets nice enough that they didn't straight up smell like despair laced with old nicotine. There was an actual hint of spring bounce to them and the bed actually fit him. That is, it fit him if he hadn't been curled up against Michael who was once again propped up and surfing the web.

Sam idly wondered if he had created an angel addict and mentally made a note to not give him sugar seeing Gabriel's fetish with it. Everything else had to slide away, pushed back enough so he could function and maybe fix what was in front of him now because he couldn't fix what his body had been doing without him.

"I found somewhere we should be," the archangel continued and Sam let out some sort of noise to show he was still awake and maybe listening. "This device tells me it is only seventy five miles from our current address."

"You know that?"

"I got it from the paper in the drawer."

Sam decided at that moment to not image what Michael got up to while he tended to pesky human needs, like wanting to pass out at three in the morning and Michael still wanting him to have a bed. Something about wanting to make sure that there were no lingering doubts of his grip on reality but he couldn't be positive.

It was hard to tell with the angel at times, when he was upset at him and when he was upset with himself.

Sam rolled over, cracking open an eye though the room was still relatively dark. There was the light from the monitor, a small sliver of dawn working its way through the curtains and causing a halo of light around their edges. Between the two the room was cast in some murky grayness, as if it was a ghost of itself. Bright stylized blue and gold paint and trim looked almost haunting. Like they were staying in a time well past and he wondered what that kind of thought process would have done to him before being more grounded in the here and now.

"What time is it?"

"Six AM. You slept in," and Sam didn't have to look to know there was a faint curl at the angels mouth, that weird promise of a smile they always got.

"So what's this thing you want that's only seventy-five miles away? Is it on Dean?" Mind more focused now, humming along as sleep lost its grasp and it seemed important if Michael would ask to go there.

"No, it is a city that has had a series of strange deaths and the press has gotten wind of the fact that the corpses were all missing their eyes."

"You – you want to work a case?" he managed, pushing himself all the way up now on one arm, staring in disbelief. "Right now? In the middle of the shit fest we happen to have landed in the middle of and you're off looking for cases instead of I don't know – using my sleep time to find a lead on Dean?"

"Tell me, Sam, what new ideas you have on how to find him and we will do it." A thin tremble in the angel, some fine line that was stretching inside of him and Sam knew he was losing patience.

As if demanding explanations where far beneath him.

Except the bastard was right and Sam knew it. Knew it as he pushed a hand through his hair, swiping it back from his face. There were no new leads. Dean was using nothing that he had access to. No stolen cards, no phone, obviously not the Impala.

"We could check some of the old places we used to stay while hunting. Out of the way joints that were more like lean-tos or old abandoned cabins in high wilderness. I mean John took us out –"

"Sam," and there was a kindness to that tone, a small movement of those fingers as if Michael wanted to reach out but didn't know if he should. "We do not know where he landed. He could be anywhere, in any state or any country. I do not know where Castiel would have sent him and he is injured. He may not be using what he has on hand simply because it does not work where he is, let alone the fears of being found by them."

His head drooped down, fists curled up against his knees and he knew this was true. It wasn't like Dean had just up and walked out the door. He could manage that. He could figure that out.

No, this was Dean who was sent somewhere without anything. Even his wallet was in the Impala. Which meant no ID, no cards, no phones, no computers, and no starting point. All they knew was he checked his voicemail and prepaid the bill six months out with a mired of transactions but everything rotated and nothing seemed trackable from what he used. All that was in him wanted to just throw things, let them hit the wall and shatter into a million little pieces because that's what it felt like he was doing right now.

A hand was on his chin and he felt his face being raised. Michael had slide the laptop off his lap and was moving closer, their knees touching and Sam felt so helpless and useless in that one single moment.

"Your friends are still looking. They might have a better chance at getting him to contact them over us."

"And you think we can trust them?"

Something like a slightly bigger small smile was on the angel's face now. "We trust them as far as they trust us."

"And that means?" Because damn, did angels have to speak in riddles?

"You could not smell it but I could. I know that hunter had a blood sigil to banish me in that car of his." Sam breathed a bit harder because activating that would have been all kinds of terrible. Who the hell knows where Michael would have ended up and trying to fly him back from another country – well that was a logistical nightmare Sam didn't want to consider. "They want to believe us but do not trust us, especially after what they have seen. So, all we can do is wait and try to build on that."

"I feel like I'm doing the wrong thing by not just going after him," Sam said, still letting his eyes stare down, past Michael's face and on to the messy sheets entangled in a blue and white maze with the comforter.

"I think he wouldn't want you to run uselessly in circles while there are more pressing matters you could be attending to."

He nodded because it was all he could do, pushing back his hair again and getting a grip. Running around the country his brother may not be in was not going to help matters. Maybe figuring out some things, maybe figuring out what was going on and saving people in the process? Dean would want that. Would be proud of that and so would Bobby as he held back a wave of grief.

"So, what about this thing has you all interested?" he asked as Michael actually looked mildly happy that he was considering going.

"There are allusions in the story in the newspaper that it is not just the tearing out of eyes. They said the victims had black sockets and burns which seems to me to be a different sort of problem."

"You – you want to go somewhere that might harbor a murderous angel?" Sam stared at the archangel as though he had grown suicidal. It was a possibility, he couldn't image what it was like for him, all folded and bound and just unable to do anything while dragging around his human. "Isn't that, like –"

He cut it off before he questioned the angel's intelligence because unlike Cas he was certain Michael would have sharp words over that. It was too damn early to have another fight.

A decent portion of him wanted to just lay back down for the next few hours and wake up to better news.

"That level of purification is uncalled for when there is a living body and soul unless there is a direct need for such a thing," Michael said, as if reading the laws of heaven to him was his morning wake up routine. Though Sam did admit to himself that he was glad that angels weren't supposed to be just running around smiting fools willy nilly. That seemed like bad design. "It may give us better information on what is going on with heaven. There are no omens surrounding the area which is odd, as something that would attract an angel's attention should have caused a disturbance of some sort."

"Alright," and suddenly he was grateful that he had something to do, something to focus on that he could hit head on. "We'll need some ID and clothes for you. I don't know, do you know police procedures at all?"

"I watched a documentary."

Yep, definite addict.

Michael was working his way off the bed, and something hit him. Some strange, weird, little niggling doubt that maybe he should be paying more attention to what was in front of him, like right in front of him.

"How are you doing?"

The angel stopped right before standing, glancing back and Sam was displeased to see that blank look had worked its way back on. "I am fine, Sam."

"You'd tell me if you weren't?"

"Of course," and Sam knew better, he knew because of Dean. Because of years living with a brother who always smiled but never spoke about all the shit he kept deep down eating him up. Except when it got so bad and he was breaking and Sam hadn't been there for him. Had been too busy being a savior and couldn't help his brother who screamed in his sleep and drank himself a step closer to death each day.

 **XX**

* * *

He swallowed then smiled, knowing also it would do shit all to push. There were things to do and he got himself up and ready, there was a case, people to save and he left his brother a voicemail before they left saying that he had seen Jody and Rufus. That they knew what happened now; and as he watched Michael get into the car with the dignity of some lost royalty he added that he loved him.

"It is good that your angry friend demanded we not go east last night," Michael was saying as they sat in the car, watching the police at work just a block up from them. Lights still flashing, onlookers wanting a taste of some sort of danger before flitting back to their safe little lives of not knowing. "Otherwise we would have been farther away."

"Not so lucky for the poor bastard that bit it just now."

"No."

"I'm hoping angels aren't into fame and glory in print seeing as this happened just hours after that story broke."

"They should not be. I do not know why they would pursue something like that," Michael said, lips pursed and Sam found he liked him better in his casual dress shirts compared to the suit. There was something off putting about seeing him in a tie, all middle management and pure business.

Maybe it reminded him of Zachariah. Some sort of corporate shill in a whole heavenly bureaucracy scene and his stomach churned a little.

"And they would simply use powers to achieve such a thing. There is little reason to go through such displays."

Sam nodded, since that made sense and opened the door. The air was clean here, smooth in the spring day and he stepped out, straightening out his own clothes. If felt like forever since he had worn these and it had been. Really. Like time traveling to the future to check out one's closet to see if they still found the fashions reasonable.

Sam really didn't.

Side by side they walked towards the police line, the crowd that had been gathered seemed small and Sam knew they had to have dispersed, growing tired of waiting to see the dead. It took a bit to move a body out. Wasn't like it was going to get up to go anywhere and why disturb a scene when you needed evidence?

The officer nearest them at the line was young, some rookie who looked fresh face and far too nice to be in the line of work that could bring him blood and his own injuries. Sam pulled out his badge, Michael following suit and the officer raised the tape while motioning to a far older man inside. Another wave and Sam moved forward, Michael following as they entered the covered parking area, some strange restlessness in him as he saw the trees still budding sway in the breeze without noise.

Gruesome. This sort of thing was always that way and despite having seen it before he felt for the poor slob that was caught up by a demon. Having the eyes burned out, even if it purified the soul had to be a hell of a way to go.

"The soul is not judged by the demon's actions," Michael whispered to him, so close but not touching.

Crouching down, he pushed back thoughts of boiling tears, forensics packing away their stuff in the far corner. Cracked skin, the scent of something under the memorable odor of burned flesh and no other wounds.

"Sulphur," Michael said, quiet and beside him studying. "Most wouldn't be able to identify it after a purification."

"You two the feds?"

Sam looked over his shoulder at the female detective walking towards them; her badge prominent on her grey pantsuit, her face had a sharp edge that was only softened by the short black hair that drifted against it. She looked at them as Sam nodded as they rose.

"Normally, never real happy to see you show up but on this one you can take it. Seen a lot of bad things in my time but this is up there. Detective Laney Kimble, Laney's good." she said offering her hand as Sam shook it.

"I'm Agent Morrison, this is Agent Jones. There was no other, uh – extensive damage. Just the eyes?"

"Right. Some sicko made sure not to harm all the other tender tissue in there," she clicked her tongue against her teeth, looking down with a grimace. Sam wondered if it was the light in here or her suit that made her look washed out in that moment despite her dark complexion. "Still working on the how though. You guys probably be wanting the corner."

"Planned on stopping by," Sam said and saw her eyes drift towards his hands.

"Not that I'm nosey, though it is my job, but what's with the matching ink?"

"Deep cover from years ago," Michael supplied and Sam tried not to look at him as though he had just landed from another planet.

"Dedication to the cause, I like it," she flashed a smile that Sam returned. "Corner is on his way in, coming back from a vacation up north. Poor Dick, was hoping for some nice fishing but we could use his years of know how right now. Give us about an hour, I'll rustle up the files for ya."

Sam definitely had the idea that she wanted as far away from this case as possible and he didn't blame her.

"Thanks, ma'am. Was there a witness?"

"Yeah, medics took him to the hospital. Still heavily sedated. Some sort of traumatized shock state of seeing it happen. Babbled a lot about bright light and claims he didn't see anything else. Doc's knocked him out down there," she flipped through some notes. "Looking at getting to him this afternoon."

Sam nodded and glanced over at Michael who had a slight furrow in his forehead. An angel running around purifying demons while still in their meatsuits and leaving semi-witnesses? Something was off and they needed a better handle on it.

"I'll see you downtown in a little bit," Laney was saying and Sam gave her a curt nod before looking back down at the body at his feet. The Sulphur smell was still not noticeable to him and he doubted anyone here.

A look at Michael but the angel already knew what he was thinking and there was a slight head shake. No other supernatural creatures here outside of his partner and they made their way back to the front entrance. Everything was enclosed, massive cement columns to hold up the building's weight and provide the covered parking. It smelled as most of them did, minus the burned human, like a cross between exhaust and oil. The area was new, even he could see that much and if it hadn't been for the eyes his first guess would have been a spook disturbed by construction. It was so new in fact that lines were vivid and bright against the black asphalt.

Stepping back out into the day, he blinked a few times against the sudden glare of the day that was far brighter than the low limited overhead lighting. So many places in there for anything to hide, even when empty, let alone with a bunch of cars and people wondered why bad things happened in these places.

They were back down the side walk, Michael still quiet as he looked around and Sam knew he was looking for any trace of something left behind. Seeing the silence he was assuming there wasn't a lot as they reached the Impala, standing out against the rainbow of sub-compacts that could fit into a toaster.

"Deep cover?" he asked as they slammed the doors shut, Michael factiously putting on his uneeded seatbelt. Another note about not letting the angel have more alone time with the computer since it was insisted upon now after Michael had watched crash test videos of what happened to humans in high speed collisions.

"I researched investigative techniques as done by your kind," the angel said as Sam scoffed, not sure to be offended or not by that last remark. "I am not human, Sam, but I am not slow either."

"Didn't say that," he tried getting a glower as the engine turned over. "Anything at all?"

"No trace of anything. It is so –" there were words that the angel was refusing to say, instead opting to gaze out the window instead.

"I'm sorry you're trapped."

That head turned towards him, face severe, eyes sharp before something smoothed everything out. "This is not your fault, Sam. It is simply frustrating as before I would have been able to sense the grace left over and know which of my brothers was responsible to reprimand. Now, there is little I can do except wait and shift through what is given."

"Well, waiting is what we got right now."

"Then you should eat," Michael said, settling back as though he was comforted by Sam's food habits.

"What is with your fascination about me and eating?"

"You are tall, you are in need of more calories."

Sam sighed and pulled out the car out into traffic.

 **XX**

* * *

It was official, he was a pansy and his brother would have a heyday with this. Would throw a parade complete with confetti flying around and free booze on the sidewalks over having something this big to hold over his head the rest of time. Dean would be pleased, have a perpetual smug look plastered across his face and he'd deserve it, he'd really would because it was so stupid and yet it should have been obvious.

He had issues, rather panic inducing issues being separated from the archangel.

Of course the morgue would be across the street while the files he wanted were here, the second floor of the station in a dusty office that was barely used expect maybe by burned out detectives without families. A fine layer of dust, even the light caught it wafting along in the air like some lazy contagion. The room would really qualify more as a glorified closet and he figured that was how it started off life as until the town grow, the force along with it and more space to shove stuff was needed.

The room wasn't really the problem, as claustrophobic as it was and he knew it. No, the weird anxiety all through him started when they had split, Michael going to the morgue because super angel senses and Sam ended up wedged in here with a few filing cabinets. It had hit before he even made it to the front door of the building and wasn't that a hoot.

It would settle, it would pass, he kept telling himself as he looked over the older files, some dating back to seven months ago. And it was, slowly, letting up showing that it was more some weird conditioning that had happened and not because there was something here.

It made sense in a way, he figured as he saw the same descriptions used for ever victim. Each one had eyes only burned out but the other vital organs, including the brain, were left relatively unharmed with an unknown cause of death for each person. The one this morning was the first to have a witness and be in a populated area as the rest seemed to be found in random side streets, dark alleys, fields. Places you wouldn't expect a person to just chill out, especially given the background of having money on some of these but perhaps a demon and the angel stalking them.

The photos were, as always, disturbing. Missing eyes bothered him more than people gutted. Black holes, the scorch marks etched into the flesh and he rubbed at his face. He was starting to think less angel and maybe something closer to spell work to get the same kind of effect. It would make more sense outside of who the hell would run around killing like this?

With another sneeze he picked up the stack and made his way out into the hallway, cool with little happening up here. This was where they stored most of their files and overflow and it seemed most officers came and got something then drug it back downstairs with them instead of sitting with them. Due to his weird, almost fearful type feeling of needing to flee back across the street, he had nixed that idea as he didn't want them to think he was on drugs while he sat there wide eyed, bouncing his leg up and down and sweating.

And it all made some weird kind of horrible sense as he and Michael hadn't been separated in who knows how long outside of a brief stint when he was gone for five minutes to buy him food. That was it and Sam figured, as the feeling slowly waned, that as long as he didn't have that same kind of reaction to Lucifer, if the bastard ever clawed his way out, he could deal.

The photocopier was tucked up against the hall wall by the stairway door and there was a soothing type of feeling as he copied what he needed, the smell of ink and ozone becoming heavier in the air. Something normal and he needed more normal.

Though maybe not normal on high as he almost leaped backwards when his phone went off.

Jody's number was up and he answered.

"Jody?"

"Hey Sam, bad time?"

"Nah, just making copies," he said getting his shit together. He tucked up the phone against his shoulder as he switched out his documents. "What's up?"

"Kind of called to know what you said to your brother. Or his voicemail."

Sam stopped, cover still up as he tried to think of this morning that was starting to feel like it was three months ago. "Uh, just that we know what's going on now."

"Anything else?" and with her tone he had some sudden flash that she was wanting to interrogate him.

What else? What else had he said? They had been leaving, and he had been watching Michael get into the car and – oh.

"That I loved him."

A soft sound, some strange sort of frustration and acceptance and he figured he had screwed it all up again.

"Your brother is a moron, just thought I'd mention it in case you hadn't figured it out," she finally said and he laughed.

"Why? What did he do?"

"Well besides calling me for the first time in a few weeks he was ranting and raving about how it wasn't you, and you were dead and he was worried you were a –" she paused, the sound of pages being flipped, "a revenant."

"Ah," was all he had because that made sense in Dean's mind. "Did you tell him that I passed the 'not so dead' tests?"

"I did," she replied and for some reason he could picture her leaning back at her desk with her feet up as he switched to the next set of files. "He's stubborn."

"Yeah, yeah, he is."

"Sam," and there was a quietness to her voice, "don't antagonize him but I think it might bring him to surface more if you called him."

"Alright."

"Good, you two working on something or just photocopying all the back issues of Playboy?"

Sam snorted, getting his collection of copies and files arranged before going back to his little room. He paused because he could lie but that would accomplish so little when everything was delicate. "A case. It looked like a rogue angel that Michael wanted to find to see if we could get answers about heaven but I'm not feeling it so much."

Of course, when he got back into his little cell to put the files away he sneezed and almost lost hold of everything.

"Sounds exciting, I can tell," she said in answer to his mini sneezing fit as he got his hands free and just caught the phone before it slid out from under his ear, helped by the smooth suit fabric. "Keep your nose clean, I'll call if anything else comes up."

"Thanks, Jody."

"Don't mention it."

So, he had a ticked off slightly crazed brother in the wind and an over attachment to an archangel. Sam figured his life could be going worse in that moment as he grabbed the papers and made for the door to the stairs.

"Sam Winchester," a voice said as the door to the stairwell whispered shut, "while I live and breathe. Apparently you do to." He turned looking and found her already moving fast enough to push the door back shut. "Naughty, naughty."

"Since we're here investigating demon deaths I'd think you'd be happy," he told her as those eyes turned black. That poor desk Sgt. "Can't say this is really helping your cause."

"Well," she mused, tilting her head up with a wicked grin that stretched the corners of her victim's mouth too much, "I was just going to watch. See what was going on. But then I saw you. And I just knew I had to have some fun, like old times Sammy. Don't you remember?"

He blinked, staring at her trying not to think of the first name that came to mind since that bitch was dead. Dean had ganked her, happily and without remorse while the demon just smiled up at him wider.

"Oh Sam, Sammy, Sam that slut wasn't the only demon you had all up inside you. You had me too, just differently. Better."

"What do you want, Meg?" he growled as the dots finally connected and he wished she was dead. Oh how he wished she had burned in fire or they had stabbed her or something. Anything after what she did, especially to Jo and Ellen.

"See," she said taking a step forward and he stepped back aware that there wasn't the space for this, "you're valuable. You're supposed to be dead, at least that's the rumor on the street." She walked forward, her fingers up his chest grinning as Sam's hand slowly moved behind him to his waist. "But here you are, all happy and healthy and oh so normal that it's just not fun, Sam. But still valuable."

"Don't think you really want me, so how about a rain check?" he asked as his fingers closed on the knife hilt. There was the sound of loud laughter from downstairs by the door, something that made her turn her head for just a moment to look and he pulled out the knife.

She was fast, had always been fast and managed to dodge a fatal blow, hissing as the knife cut through the uniform shirt into her skin. "Where did you get that?"

"Doesn't matter," he said knowing the archangel was just across the street. Sorting things out and probably making some awkward attempt to get Laney to stop flirting. "Don't suppose you'd just leave."

"Not without insurance."

She hissed, suddenly rushing him head down hitting him straight in the stomach slamming him against the wall and railing that was way to close in here. He sank the blade into her shoulder, her pained sound telling him it definitely hurt as she clawed straight down his shoulder across his back when he tried to free himself. Damn demons, always so strong.

Little fingers wrapped around his wrist, trying to slam his hand into the wall to get him to drop his weapon. He used his free hand and punched it palm first into her face.

"Exorcizamus te, ominus immundus spiritus, ominus satanica potestas, ominus incu-"

His words were cut off by a hand wrapping around his throat, crushing it as he tried to get his leg up to kick her free. "Uh uh Sammy, not yet. Got to take you with me."

Fuck. Michael couldn't hear him if he prayed anymore. Some brief flash told him that maybe he could feel distress because damn, he had that in spades right now.

He managed to get in a blow to connect from his foot to her stomach still clinging to the knife in his battered fist that knocked her back a bit as a door under them burst open. Footsteps, more than one set were running up the spiral stairs and he fought her back as she grinned, her eyes turning black before she saw who was on the stairs.

"You," she got out and immediately vacated the meat suit, stream of black smoke hurtling up.

Sam managed to catch the unconscious officer as they both slide down the wall before looking over to see Michael, his face blank but he assumed the angel was pissed. It was Laney behind him that he was worried about. She looked like she was about to collapse and Sam moved his head getting Michael to turn and look.

"What – what," she couldn't quite form words as her eyes went back to the Sam.

"Demon," Michael said grimly. "That's what all the victims had in common we believe, they were infested by those things."

Laney to her credit took a deep breath and smoothed her jacket. "So Shelia –"

"Had no say in the matter," Sam told her quietly, becoming aware of the blood starting to really stain that shirt. "We need medical attention. We'll figure out a story later."

Laney ran back down the stairs to get help since Sam was currently blocking the door up here with an unconscious woman. Michael came to him, helping him to position her better so the door could be used, excited voices entering below them, feet on the stairs. Michael's eyes always betrayed him.

"I'm alright," he said quietly. "Just banged up. But better off than her. Take the knife."

The angel slipped the knife into his inside suit pocket as more people arrived.


	7. Chapter 7

**...**

* * *

"So this is what you two do."

"More or less," Sam said.

Laney sat perched in a chair at the table in the motel room they had gotten after seeing the body. It was a shame really, Sam almost liked this room. It had a low key beige and white theme that was rather soothing. Along with the added benefit of no questionable stains on the floor or the white comforters. Laney herself was holding onto her coffee like a least link to reality, her suit jacket undone and hanging slightly askew from her shoulders. Her eyes were bloodshot, mouth a thin hard line.

Across from her was Michael who still looked immaculate and barely saying a word for the past few hours. He had taken off his tie, collar unbuttoned but there was an uneasy sense under his calm surface, something threatening that Sam couldn't name.

Turning his attention back to his bag, he managed to find a clean dress shirt. It was a bit wrinkled but would do. He wanted to still look the part if the worst happened, given what had gone down and his current shirt wouldn't do. That one had new decorations of blood and ragged tears. Pretty much trash. Maybe he'd use it for rags.

A part of him was ready to cut and leave. Whatever was here, they'd need to send someone else because staying was asking for trouble.

"She was scared of you," Laney said, attention on Michael who was unmoved.

This was the first time he that she had brought it up. That wild whirl of this afternoon of trying to come up with a story, keeping it straight and getting out of the building had shuffled a lot of things to later. Sam figured that now was that later. So much time wasted by giving statements along with frantic moments of trying to buy themselves some time by using an aggravated Rufus to vouch for their credentials. But he had managed to get the copies he made out of there. Michael had read them at the accelerated pace of angels on their way back.

Laney had been nervous, jittery, rubbing her arms and staring at the dashboard as if the car itself would morph into the next monster.

Still, this wasn't a conversation that he wanted to have as he looked anywhere but at the table. One of the paintings caught his eye. Standard hotel fair of a cottage in the woods covered in flowers by a creek and he wished he was there. Somewhere peaceful like that, where he could just be and shed all the worries that were growing like a weight on his back about to drown him.

"It's complicated," he finally offered.

"Uncomplicate it," she snapped and he shifted. Taking a breath, she drew in some of that anger, her shoulders rolling back into a less aggressive stance. "Look, I still work there. At least as of this afternoon. One of my colleagues looks like she lost her damn mind and they're going to figure out real fast that you two aren't on the level. So, please, spare me your complications and just tell me what the hell is going on. Why was she so terrified of Michael, if that's even your real name?"

"It is," the angel said, finally looking at her.

Laney reflexively drew back and Sam didn't blame her. Michael's tone was flat and cold, the angel sitting with his legs crossed, hands clasped in his lap; so still he could have been a statue sat in their room. It wasn't as if she knew them from Adam. Her fear was valid, she had no knowledge of how to test for monsters, her paranoia just setting in that they could be anything at any time. To her, they could turn out worse than watching a demon vacate a host on those stairs.

Didn't mean that he wanted to be the one to explain it to her and he slipped into the bathroom.

Taking off his shirt, swollen fingers clumsy on the buttons, he could see the bruises starting to form as he took stock in the mirror. Little uneven clumps of darkness, tender to the touch. Turning half way around, he could just barely make out a large one taking hold under Michael's name from where his back had met the railing. His right hand stiff, beginning to enter into a low throbbing ache from being beaten against the wall. Even his neck had shadows from her attempt to crush his throat.

Not the easiest of injuries to hide or explain.

He washed the cuts, trying to steady himself, splashing some water on his face and slicking down his hair. What he wanted was to climb into that shower that looked clean for once then pass out in bed for a few hours but that wasn't in the cards. They needed to pack and be ready to leave town in an instant.

As he dried his face he mourned the loss of a room that came with soft towels, fresh soap and the scent that someone had cleaned it recently.

Damn Meg. She was greedy but it bothered him that she wanted him for insurance. Insurance against whom? Dean maybe. Maybe Cas if he was still kicking, though that seemed doubtful given the blood and violence at what was once Bobby's home.

That wound still raw, he instead focused on finishing drying his skin and checking to make sure nothing was actively bleeding. No reason to put on a new shirt if that was the case. Seeing nothing, he pulled on the shirt but found that trying to button it was a lot harder than unbuttoning when one had sausage fingers. He gave up the fight on that one.

Fingering the bruises that showed past the shirt edge he thought that the answer to the Meg problem went deeper than what was happening here.

Opening the door, he saw Laney still at the table but looking like a threatened animal about to bolt. All he could do was sigh.

"Did you cut yourself open to show her?"

"How else am I supposed to convince anyone due to my current state? She refused to believe I was simply human."

"And I was right," she said, voice hard, one hand flat against the scarred table. "In brief doses you could pass but there's something about you not quite right. And then that knife trick –" she cut herself off, waving a hand towards Michael, looking like she might pass out on the table.

Sam had half a mind that she would succeed in that endeavor.

"You do understand people find it disturbing right?" he asking, throwing his dirty dress shirt in his bag as Michael stood and came to him. "I mean, cutting things open that should not be cut open is not the best way to make friends."

"I'll keep that in mind, Sam."

Michael pressed his palm against his ribs, thumb beside the deep bruise on his sternum, courtesy of Meg's head ramming into him. For a moment he felt it, that flash of longing as he heard the hum of Michael. That buzz under the angel's own skin that sang of captured grace. There was a shift under Michael's carefully crafted blank face, the want to be closer and never having it again.

It was terrifying, the intensity of this, that desperate anxiety he had felt earlier at being separated by just a block. A craving was forming, wanting to feel that fire through him, in every cell. To be against the actual angel, to flow into him like they had been in depths of hell.

A deep fear in him was waking to whisper that maybe he never had a choice. That maybe he would never want any of this on his own.

"I'm alright, just some bruising," he said.

Laney was watching them with a sharp focus, and he knew she was seeing the extent of their markings as the portion that slipped beneath his collarbone was on full display. There were words he knew she wanted to speak as Michael moved his fingers against his tender points, a small line appearing by his mouth in unhappiness. Unhappiness over what exactly, or what made him the most upset, Sam wasn't sure and couldn't bring himself to ask.

There was a part of him that was afraid Michael was disgusted over being saddled with a human who couldn't save himself.

Hands pulled his collar closed, surprisingly rough in their movements as the button was done with enough force that the cloth pushed back harshly against his neck.

"I assume you are preparing to move," Michael said, continuing in his buttoning ways.

"Yeah. She's right, they're going to figure out real quick that we aren't the real deal. I did see something in the case notes though. The only thing those victims had in common was that they all frequented the same coffee shop."

Which he had to admit didn't seem like stellar evidence.

"We were talking," Laney said and he glanced over at her. She was turning the cup in her hands, a little less tense. "I'm not sure how I feel about a human doing this for the past eight months. Though the thought of angels just burning people up isn't comforting either."

"I did say that it wasn't done by an angel, but it may still involve heaven," Michael answered, taking Sam's hand to look it over. Sam attempted not to wince as the angel moved his fingers, testing the bones and muscles.

"How is heaven involved?" he asked.

"I did not put all the pieces together until I saw the body in better light which allowed me to a pattern in the wounds." Michael released his hand and Sam felt like there was an unfathomable distance between them instead of just a couple of feet. "Long ago, certain gifts were given to Solomon –"

"Whoa, King Solomon, as in the biblical one? Wasn't he the one who wanted to cut a kid in half?" she asked, her eyes wide.

"Yes, that Solomon." The angel's tone was terse, disliking the interruption, and they stayed quiet. "Father went to him in a dream and Solomon asked for wisdom instead of something self-serving like wealth. That was the only wise act he did, using this supposed wisdom to say he was exempt from the laws laid down for him, skirting his duty to his people and to the divine. For all he bellowed about, he did not understand that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God."

Michael paused, taking a breath and Sam got the idea that this was till a sore point for the archangel.

"Despite all of this, one of things he received to show his favor in the eyes of Father was a seal. Crafted by heaven, it allows the user to do many things, such as commanding a demon or destroying them."

"Straight up dead?" Sam asked and got a nod. "Not a lot of things do that especially with the burned out eyes. So it involves heaven because you guys originally made it?"

"No, Sam." A look as though he was simple and Sam guessed he probably was. "Such things should not remain on earth unaccounted for. After his death, the kingdom splintered and the seal returned to heaven's care."

A careful nod and Sam got it, he did. There was another part of this that they were not discussing in front of the civilian and he moved to zip up his bag, swollen fingers protesting when he held the cloth. To his surprise, Laney stood, looking resolute in the wake of what she had just dropped into her life.

"Still my case," she said, in answer to his unasked question. "Need to make sure it's done, even if I get fired tomorrow for letting fake Feds run around."

She flashed a smile, not as easy as her on that morning had been.

Picking up his bag with his good hand he thought about Jody's introduction to things with claws and fangs. It could be worse and Laney rolled with it. He also thought she'd go home and cry into a fifth of scotch later on while questioning her mental stability.

"You think it's kept in the coffee shop?"

"Yes," the angel answered, not bothering to look at him. "It grows warm in the presence of evil and has a soft glow."

He knew Dean would be making a snarky comment about Sting right now.

"And then, whoever has it makes a mental note and stalks the person later on to deliver the final blow," Laney finished. "It's fanaticism or maybe some kind of revenge. Not sure which."

"Guess we'll lay low until dark and find out," Sam said, carrying his bag out the door, Michael staring off into the middle distance as though he was alone.

 **...**

* * *

"No, you want to cross those and short that," Sam whispered to her as he held the light, his other hand still too puffy to use outside of pointing. She muttered something, trying to work the wires as Michael glanced back at them from his position further up the alley.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. This is one that has to think it's still connected. You can't just cut it cause that will summon all kinds of trouble."

"Should I ask what you do in your free time?"

"No."

Her attention was set on the wires and he glanced up, Michael's back to them. The back of the coffee place was brick work, standing out against the concrete frames of the surrounding structures. There wasn't much out here, just large dumpsters but he always felt uneasy in these areas. They were small, easy to surround and get trapped in. Michael's senses only put him partly at ease since he didn't know the warning time between smelling something coming and it actually arriving.

Not that he was asking the angel anything. Michael had been mute as they killed time, trying to come up with a plan in the last of the daylight hours. The staring though, that angelic stare as though they were looking through the flesh cage straight to the soul was still a thing. He had wanted to reach out, tell him everything was alright but felt like it would only make whatever this was worse.

All he did know was that he didn't know how to help him.

"Ah!" she said, finally getting it right and Sam breathed deeply.

"Now we get to see if we can break in."

Michael had drifted closer to them as Sam reached for his wallet to see if he had something to help slip the bolt. With a look that was, well, he would say it would make storms flee, the archangel pushed on the door. A screech of wood then silence as it swung open, revealing the dark interior. Sam pointed his light in, a glare of steel and glossy blue tile but no signs of life.

"That works too," Laney said, her voice choked by either fear or awe. "So, a pentagram on a disc?"

"Essentially," Michael said, taking the lead and walking in. "If I am correct, more than likely the one using it would put it back in the most effective area after each killing. Many people come through here, more exposure to find one that is not all the way human."

"Probably near the front," Sam added as they made their way into the customer area.

He was grateful that the place had shades to keep out the afternoon sun that were pulled tight at night. Made prancing around while waving a flashlight looking for a heavenly artifact a bit less nerve wracking. A quick scan and it seemed like all the other coffee shops he had ever been in – a glass display for baked goods and other food, the order counter, espresso bar, storage for drink cups and the like. The furniture was the typical fare, mostly cheap chairs at small tables with an overstuffed sofa in one corner while the wall that wasn't lined with windows or the service counter was packed with shelves hawking a number of cups, coffee bags and other assorted things.

It made him wonder if banks made potential owners follow a certain set pattern on store set up in hopes of success.

They started their search. He was already put out by his hand, unable to move most things like the crates of dishes used for customers who were eating in. Gimpy Sam, he thought glumly as Laney came over to help. The angel himself was at the far end, looking under counters and then simply picking up the espresso machine as if it was a pillow.

Sam swallowed a comment on him needing to learn to watch that type of thing.

"Still terrifying," Laney whispered as she moved a crate of glassed. Sam scanned the shelf, then a soft jingle as they knocked together when she slid them back in before moving onto the next ones.

"I'm surprised you'd help us."

 _Even after Michael stabbed himself to show off his shininess,_ he thought but didn't add.

"I feel bad," she said, repeating their glass move and search routine. "You know what he told me?"

"Before or after he cut himself open?" he asked, Laney snorting.

A feeling that Michael had stopped to look at him and he felt a chill down his back. Then a scrapping sound as the angel went back to his search for other impossible to move things.

"He told me you saved him."

Sam almost dropped his flashlight.

 _Focus_ , he told himself and looked at the shelf she had just cleared out, the gleam of the steel harsh on his eyes. The shroud of darkness that folded herself perpetually around them felt darker and heavier the longer they were in here.

"Kind of think he has that backwards," he muttered.

He knew he had her full attention, Laney probably torn between intense curiosity and being done with knowing secrets for the rest of her life. Sam was about to figure out a way to explain without details when a thought occurred to him. It also occurred to him how obtuse he was at times.

"Hey, it gets warm, not just glow, right?"

"Yes," Michael agreed. "It has a heat to it that isn't burning but would be noticeable."

"What about the inside of the cash drawer then?" he asked and heard Laney sigh.

"We made this too hard," she said, looking over the machine. It was an antique, something of a conversation piece with its embossed brass and lack of any real electronics. For some reason, seeing it made him think of the candy story from that Willy Wonka movie. It did look like it would be right at home there.

Laney turned the key. "Let's see. One, two, three," she said, hitting some keys before a ding sounded and the drawer pushed out. "Bingo. And mama said retail was a dead end job."

Sam had to smile because him and Dean would have taken one look at that thing and just gotten a crowbar.

Everything inside the drawer looking normal and he slid his good hand up along the inner portion of the drawer. After a moment, he felt something. Something round, cool, and firmly stuck in place that didn't seem to be part of the register.

"I think that's it. Or it could be a screw but I'm fairly certain it's a little disk with engravings on it."

Laney let out a low laugh as Michael reached over. His fingers found Sam's and for a moment Sam wanted to grab them and hold on. Instead, he pulled back his own hand and heard the angel whisper words that were not native to earth. There, in Michael's palm, was a small brass disc.

"That little thing?" Laney asked, looking at it but not moving to touch it. "That caused all of this?"

"Appearances can be deceiving," Sam said as Michael curled his fingers around it. "I guess we get to track down the owner, what's her name –"

"Hilda Tamfee," Laney supplied.

"Maybe you –," he paused trying to find words that wouldn't offend her. "You don't have to come. It might be better for your career if you didn't."

He didn't want to add that it might be better for her psyche if it was a human and they didn't want to back off or tell them what they needed to know. Not that he would be able to stop her. In many ways, her coming with them was better than her attempting something on her own. He may have given her the run down on protection and detection basics this afternoon but that didn't make her safe.

Even years of experience didn't make it safe for a hunter.

"No. I may not be able to sleep well ever again but people are dead and I'd be damned if I didn't know for a fact this was taken care of. Plus, I have actual credentials and the ability to get things such as addresses."

Sam pushed the cash drawer closed again. "Well, let's hope Mrs. Tamfee is a night owl."


End file.
